CFSAN Roundtable Talks Functional Food, Tween Nutrition

WASHINGTON—FDA's Center for Food Safety and Nutrition (CFSAN) division held a nutrition roundtable on Friday, Dec. 12, to update stakeholders on some of the agency's activities, including functional food oversight. An overview of the agency's priorities and accomplishments was provided by Steven Sundloff, Ph.D., director of CFSAN, but the real roundtable came from presentations on food packaging, functional foods and the new obesity campaign for pre-adolescents.

Starting with its December-released "Dear Manufacturer" letter on front-of-package (FOP) symbol usage relative to nutrition claims, Jordan Lim, PhD, a consumer science expert for CFSAN, reviewed the current use of FOPs, FDA's current thinking on the subject and the agency's recent focus group research. He said FOP symbols are more common but there is little solid information on how they affect consumer choice.

He discussed the late-2006 Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) petition on creating an agency-approved FOP symbol to show a foods healthfulness, adding a public hearing held in 2007 helped the agency compile many comments and questions dealing with nutrition criteria, consumer research and economic impact. Unfortunately, he reported the public hearing produced little usable info or data on most areas of discussion, as stakeholders provided little such info in their comments.

Thus, FDA undertook focus group research, which revealed most consumers were not affected by shelf tags. However, nutrient-specific symbols were favored over summary symbols, and consumers suggested colors and "high-med-low" impact the effectiveness of the nutrient-specific panels. Overall, consumers said keep it short and focused, make it eye-catching, and stimulate the shopper to dig deeper into the product's nutrition information.

Barbara Schneeman, Ph.D., head of FDA's Office of Nutritional Products, Labeling, and Dietary Supplements (ONPLDS), cautioned manufacturers that using symbols implying a health benefit could fall under the health claim regulations.

On functional foods, presenters Julie Moss, Ph.D., R.D., and Ritu Nalubola, Ph.D., both ONPLDS team members reviewed FDA's December 2005 public hearing on the safety evaluation and labeling of foods marketed as "functional foods." They broke the topic into seven main issues of the agency's focus, providing some details on the types and number of comments submitted to FDA for each issue.

The issues included: the overall framework for safety and labeling of these foods; safety assessment of functional food ingredients; notification of marketing and labeling disclaimers relative to structure-function claims; scientific findings from non-governmental sources; nutritive value and labeling claims; incentives to stimulate research on functional foods; and the current regulatory status of functional foods under the conventional foods umbrella.

Most comments seemed to fail to provide the sufficient legal and scientific basis requested by FDA. However, most comments appeared to contend the current regulations are largely sufficient, and FDA has little legal authority to change certain aspects of or create a new definition/category for functional food regulation. When questioned on the next steps CFSAN has planned for functional foods, Moss and Nalubola said the agency is still reviewing all comments but does intend to respond to a petition filed by CSPI, which complains about claims made on 100s of functional food labels.

Capping off the roundtable, Marjorie Davidson, Ph.D., a consumer educator at CFSAN, outlined a new outreach program the agency hopes will encourage Tweens—children aged 9 to 13—to use the nutrition facts panel on food products to make healthier food choices. Called Spot the Block, the program was born from an FDA Obesity working group action plan calling for education of these children to counter a 15-percent obesity rate in the age group.

Noting the challenges in reaching this age group on such a "boring" topic for kids, Davidson said the agency decided to partner with the Cartoon Network and offer a number of animations marketing the Spot the Block campaign. She said early testing of the animations, which drive kids and parents to a program Web site for more information, seemed to produce surprisingly decent results. Other partnerships include NASA, the National Science Teacher's Association, major League Soccer, the Junior League and Area Offices on Aging (which gets the grandparents involved).