Washington, Oct. 6 : Researchers at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee have found that the current food labelling leads to under-consumption of calcium.

Laura Peracchio and Lauren Block, professor of marketing at Baruch College (CUNY), say that food labels often confuse consumers, due to which they do not get the required nutritional information.

They corroborated their findings with the illustration of women at the risk for osteoporosis, who are told by their doctors to intake 1,200-1,500 milligrams of calcium every day.

According to them, when such a woman looks at the ‘Nutrition Facts’ panel on a carton of yoghurt or a jug of milk, she finds that calcium is only listed by “Percent Daily Value”, which neither she nor her doctor can easily convert into milligrams.

The researchers have also found that consumers, who were taught how to translate the information in the desired form, consumed more calcium.

The research involved three separate studies and a follow-up. In the first study, only two of 37 participants were able to correctly translate the calcium information on a carton of yoghurt from ‘Percent Daily Value’ to milligrams.

In the second study, only six of the 20 physicians were able to perform the same task correctly.

The third study, involving 41 women who were pregnant or breast-feeding, was the one in which half of the participants were provided with a one-page calcium fact sheet including the formula for converting the percent value into milligrams.

It showed that 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.

“This is particularly worrisome with at-risk populations such as those over 55 years of age, or pregnant or lactating women,” Peracchio said.

Peracchio and Block believe that the same may be the case with other beneficial nutrients also.

“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 fibre, vitamin A, vitamin C, and iron…” they said.

The study is issued in the Journal of Public Policy and Marketing. (ANI)