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Nutrition, Vitamins & Supplements for Seniors
Senior Citizens May Not Get Calcium Needed Due to
Confusing Food Labels
Consumers often don't get nutritional information
they need due to confusion
Oct. 5, 2007 - Current food labeling leads to
under-consumption of calcium, an important additive for senior citizens
fighting against osteoporosis, and this is probably true for other nutrients,
according to a new study. The problem can be improved, the researchers
say, if consumers are taught to better translate the information on the
food package label.
A woman at risk for osteoporosis is told by her
doctor to get 1,200-1,500 milligrams of calcium every day. But when she
looks at the Nutrition Facts panel on a carton of yogurt or a jug of
milk, she finds that calcium is only listed by “Percent Daily Value” (%DV).
How does she convert that to milligrams?
If she’s like most of us…she can’t. And neither can
her doctor.
Those were among the findings of research conducted
by Laura A. Peracchio, professor of marketing at the University of
Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM), and Lauren Block, professor of marketing at
Baruch College (CUNY). The results were so compelling that the U.S. Food
and Drug Administration added information to its Web site on how to
translate %DV to milligrams. (How to Understand and Use the Nutrition Facts Label
(FDA) - http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/foodlab.html)
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The problem
The research, which involved three separate studies
and a follow-up, is discussed in “The Calcium Quandary: How Consumers
Use Nutrition Labels for Daily Diet,” published in the Journal of Public
Policy and Marketing. Peracchio and Block found that:
● In Study 1, only two of 37 respondents
correctly translated the calcium information on a carton of yogurt from
%DV to milligrams.
● In Study 2, when 20 physicians were shown the
same label, only six gave the right answer in milligrams. (Asked how the
calculation was done, one physician who gave an incorrect answer
replied: “I have no idea. I made it up.”) Yet most doctors dispense
calcium recommendations to their patients in milligrams.
The central question of the research, Peracchio and
Block write, is: “How do consumers make food consumption decisions when
product information falls short of providing the nutritional knowledge
needed for personal health consumption goals"”
And the answer
The answer is found in Study 3, which involved 41
women who were pregnant or breast-feeding. All had been told by their
doctors or had read independently that they needed 1,200-1,500
milligrams of calcium a day.
Half of the women were given a one-page calcium
fact sheet including the formula for converting %DV to milligrams. The
formula is simple – %DV is based on the average recommended calcium
intake of 1,000 milligrams daily. To convert %DV to milligrams, just add
“0” to the percentage on the label. For example, a carton of milk
delivering 30% DV contains 300 milligrams of calcium.
The women who were given the fact sheet consumed
significantly more average daily calcium (a mean of 1,429.78 milligrams)
than women who were not given the fact sheet (a mean of 988.24
milligrams).
Current labeling leads to under-consumption of
calcium, the research showed. The women who were not given the fact
sheet may have consumed close to 100%DV of calcium daily, but it fell
short of the 120-150% DV they really needed.
“This is particularly worrisome with at-risk
populations such as those over 55 years of age, or pregnant or lactating
women,” says Peracchio.
Teenage girls also need extra calcium, she points
out, and a study reported this summer in The New York Times suggests
that consuming high levels of vitamin D and calcium may offer some
protection against the most aggressive kinds of breast cancer.
Other nutrients affected
Peracchio and Block point out that the difficulty
in translating the Nutrition Facts panel on food products goes beyond
calcium.
“The challenge of using the Nutrition Facts panel
to make adequate food consumption decisions is similar for other
nutrients that consumers often do not consume enough of, such as dietary
fiber, vitamin A, vitamin C, and iron….”
The Nutrition Facts panel is separated into two
categories: the top of the panel lists nutrients that should be limited
(fat, cholesterol, sodium, etc.); “good” nutrients are listed at the
bottom (calcium, fiber, iron, vitamins A and C, etc.).
“Much more attention and educational efforts have
been paid to the former than to the latter,” the research concluded.
“Helping people better navigate the consumer
environment” is extremely rewarding work, Peracchio says. She teaches
courses in consumer behavior, marketing strategy and nonprofit marketing
at UWM’s Sheldon B. Lubar School of Business, and also serves as an
associate editor of the Journal of Consumer Research, one of the top
three journals in the marketing field.
Editor’s Notes:
A member of the UWM faculty since 1990, Peracchio
received her Ph.D. in marketing from Northwestern University. She was
one of two Roger L. Fitzsimonds Scholars in the Lubar School of Business
for 2004-06. She has advised many organizations on marketing issues,
including Hormel Foods, S.C. Johnson and the Betty Brinn Children’s
Museum of Milwaukee.
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