What does healthy mean? Can we see it? Can we feel it? Can we taste it?
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines “health” as “a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. If this is the case, what does it mean for food to be healthy? If a food is low in fat but high in sugar is that healthy? These are some of the questions brought up in a great article by the Internet source Popular Science.
The FDA has begun the process of redefining the meaning of the word healthy. That being said, food labels claiming that their content is “healthy” may need to change or maybe they will go away all together. The biggest challenge though is actually defining the word. Can it be done, or will we need a completely new word or concept to be able to correctly label the food we eat? Either way something needs to be done.
Right now we have products on our grocery shelves such as fat free pudding, extremely sugary breakfast cereals, and fruit juices being considered and labeled as “healthy” . Can we honestly and confidently say that pudding is more “healthy” than an orange or some broccoli? I have a very tough time agreeing with that, as did many researchers who looked at the correlation between Coronary Artery Disease and the Sugar Research Foundation’s data dating back to the 1950’s. The research depicted that the Sugar Industry has continuously downplayed the effects that added sugar and a high sugar diet can have on the body. Their research alone has significantly helped high sugar foods and beverages being mislabeled as “healthy”!
In the end “healthy” is a difficult word to describe and an even more difficult word to create criteria for when determining which food labels can get that seal of approval. Maybe we need to take the article’s advice and leave a comment on the FDA website on how we as the consumers and next generation of health professionals/advocates want and think healthy labels to be redefined.