Defining "Healthy" on Food Labels: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back
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Defining Healthy on Food Labels: One Step
Forward, Two Steps Back
ALEXIA BRUNET MARKS*
ABSTRACT:
Few definitions of the mid-twentieth century have survived into the
twenty-first century. It is worth asking, then, why the definition of
health, articulated seventy-five years ago by the World Health
Organization, has endured into the present. The 1948 definition reads as
follows: [h]ealth is a state of complete physical, mental[,] and social
well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.1
Aspirational in tone, the definition resonates with the surge among
consumers towards healthier foods and overall well-being. However, in
addition to wartime and pandemic concerns, today's threats to achieving
health include climate change and a rise in diet-related chronic health
diseases-like obesity, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, stroke, type
2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, some cancers, and perhaps some
neurological diseases.' '
Modernizing food labels can help reduce the incidence of diet-related
chronic health disease. In the United States, the last major overhaul of
food labeling standards occurred in 1990, with the adoption of a
mandatory standardized Nutrition Facts Panel on all food products;
* Professor of Law, University of Colorado Law School. JD, Pritzker Northwestern
University Law School; PhD, Purdue University (Agricultural Economics). I thank the
organizers and participants at the Indiana University Journal of Global Legal Studies
Symposium for elevating my work and providing valuable feedback, specifically Jayanth
Krishnan, Tyler Parrish, Michael Roberts, Smita Narula, and Laurie Beyranevand. I
welcome all comments at: alexia.brunet@colorado.edu.
1. CONSTITUTION OF THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION pmbl. (Apr. 7, 1948),
https://apps.who.int/gb/gov/assets/constitution-en.pdf.
2. Sareen S. Gropper, The Role of Nutrition in Chronic Disease, 15 NUTRIENTS 664,
Jan. 28, 2023, at 1.
Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies Vol. 31 #2 (Summer 2024)
© Indiana University Maurer School of Law
47](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/ijgls31&div=16&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Defining "Healthy" on Food Labels: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back
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