Schoolchildren at a stall in Vijayawada. The Indian Nutrition Rating system allows foods high in fat, salt and sugar, and ultra processed foods, such as biscuits, flaunt two stars on the packet when they might otherwise have four warning signals. Similarly, a soft drink that should have a high warning in sugar instead gets two stars. This means that the system allows all these foods to be some level of healthy.
| Photo Credit: The Hindu
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call to tackle obesity and the 2025 Economic Survey’s recommendation of imposing a ‘health tax’ on ultra-processed foods (UPFs) to curb their consumption are both laudable. But these efforts risk being derailed by India’s ambiguous, industry-friendly, and subjective food marketing regulations. In India, one in four adult men and women are obese and one in four adults are either diabetic or pre-diabetic (National Family Health Survey-5). This underlines the urgency of the problem.
Right to Information responses and official communications expose how various Ministries and the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) have not been able to implement the labelling or advertising regulations planned in 2017 and continue to rely on regulations that are ambiguous and subjective in nature. No wonder there are so many advertisements of UPFs, and no front-of-pack labels yet.
Labelling and advertising
In September 2022, the FSSAI proposed the Indian Nutrition Rating, a ‘health star’ labelling system modelled on Australia’s not-so-successful framework, which was developed by a food industry technologist. In this system, half a star means that the food is ‘least healthy’ and 5 stars means that it qualifies as ‘healthiest’. Right to Information responses confirm that the FSSAI relied on an IIM Ahmedabad study to justify the rating system — a study it never critically evaluated. Worse, food industry representatives dominated key stakeholder meetings and members of the scientific panel were sidelined. The whole process sided with industry, as a member of the stakeholder group pointed out. Moreover, the FSSAI ignored its own 2021 draft regulations indicating ‘traffic light’ colour-coded and mandatory warning labels and instead bowed down to industry lobbying.
The Indian Nutrition Rating system is flawed because the stars, at best, can mislead consumers by creating a health halo on all pre-packaged unhealthy food products. The system allows foods high in fat, salt and sugar (HFSS) and UPFs, such as biscuits, flaunt two stars on the packet when they might otherwise have four warning signals. Similarly, a soft drink that should have a high warning in sugar instead gets two stars. Corn flakes, which is is high in sugar and sodium, gets 3 stars. This means that the system allows all these foods to be some level of healthy.
Globally, warning labels that say the product is high in sugar/salt or bad fats allow consumers to know the true nature of the product and make a choice. Most of the front-of-pack labels in use today are warning labels. For instance, Chile’s black ‘high in’ labels reduced consumption of UPFs by 24%. The fix is therefore to ensure that front-of-pack labels are notified soon and replace stars with mandatory ‘high in’ warnings on HFSS foods and UPFs, based on the World Health Organization’s guidelines or the National Institute of Nutrition’s Dietary Guideline for Indians.
India has four laws to curb misleading advertising for HFSS/ UPFs but none of them is effective, according to reports and data. The National Multisectoral Action Plan, 2017, called for an amendment to these laws to include restrictions on advertisements on HFSS foods, but no regulatory action has been taken so far.
Existing regulations are ambiguous and subjective. The Consumer Protection Act, 2019, defines as ‘misleading’ any product or service that deliberately conceals important information. If we interpret important information to be about fat/sugar or salt, FSSAI does not agree. FSS regulations nowhere specify that nutritional information of a food product must be provided in the advertisement. This means that a cola drink can target people, especially children and youth, without disclosing that the drink contains 9-10 teaspoons of sugar per bottle. FSS regulations are yet to provide a definition of HFSS or UPFs and thresholds beyond which these will be regulated.
The result is continued freedom to advertise unhealthy addictive food products across media. This puts people at risk of obesity and diabetes. Studies show that if regulations banning junk foods are implemented, it would cut the rate of childhood obesity significantly.
The path forward
The Economic Survey rightly demands stringent front-of-pack labels and stricter marketing curbs. To achieve this, India needs to take the following steps. First, it needs to scrap the Indian Nutrition Rating system and adopt warning labels. Second, there must be clear sugar/salt/fat limits for HFSS foods. The World Health Organization’s SEARO guidelines and the Indian Council of Medical Research-National Institute of Nutrition guidelines offer a template. Third, advertising loopholes need to be closed through the amendment of existing laws or the enactment of a new one harmonising all laws under a unified UPF/HFSS advertisement ban. Fourth, the government could consider launching a campaign on the risks of UPFs in all languages.
India’s obesity crisis is not a public failure but a policy failure. The Economic Survey offers a road map to rectify this. Without urgent action, the plan to halt obesity by 2025 will not be successful. The Prime Minister’s vision of a healthy India demands more than rhetoric; India needs a regulatory approach that does not sacrifice children’s health for corporate profit. The suggestions in the Economic Survey can break the cycle to achieve the Prime Minister’s vision. It is for the policy makers to show urgency and will.
Dr. Arun Gupta, pediatrician, public health expert, and convenor of the Nutrition Advocacy in Public Interest. He is a former member of the PM’s Council on India’s Nutritional Challenges
Published – March 11, 2025 01:38 am IST