The Brazilian Institute of Consumer Protection (IDEC) in collaboration with the editorial office of the School of Public Health of the University of São Paulo (USP) has published an e-book “You Have the Right to Know What You Eat: A Record of the History of Front-of-Package Nutrition Labeling from the Perspective of Civil Society,” which gathers unpublished documents, regulatory decisions, scientific studies, and historical records to recount how civil society, academia, and public institutions faced a decade of debates and resistance to approve the new regulation.

The publication notes that, in recent years, scientific studies have increasingly demonstrated the relationship between the consumption of ultra-processed foods and a higher risk of obesity, diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, and premature mortality.

In this context, front-of-package nutrition labeling has become one of the main public health strategies adopted in several countries to alert the population about products with excessive essential nutrients.

In Brazil, the measure now requires the inclusion of a magnifying glass on the front of the packaging for products that contain high amounts of added sugars, saturated fats, or sodium, allowing consumers to identify this information in seconds without having to decipher complex nutritional tables.