The junk in junk food

The fat, salt and carbs in your tea-time snack

How much junk is there in junk food, exactly? At first sight, this may be an unreasonable question to ask. After all, when people eat a big bag of potato crisps, or stock up on salted, buttered popcorn at a movie, or finish an entire bowl of crisp bhujia at teatime, they know that what they’re eating isn’t exactly good for them. However, as behavioural economists have discovered, knowing exactly how bad for you something really is can impact your decision-making process very differently from knowing vaguely that it isn’t really the healthy choice. The Centre for Science and Environment’s recent two-month survey of packaged snack foods makes claims, thus, that should be of concern to Indian consumers. One of those claims is that companies are getting around labelling laws by printing nutritional information pertaining to serving sizes that are unrealistically small. If, as the old advertisement jingle goes, “you can’t stop at one”, telling purchasers the nutritional value of just one is deliberately deceptive.

In particular, consumers should be told how much salt and how much fat is in the amount that, according to reasonable observers, they are likely to eat. Artificially chosen “serving sizes” are certainly a problem that needs examination, and regulatory intervention. In one case examined by CSE, information was provided for a “serving size” of just 10 grammes of bhujia, which presumes self-restraint on the part of consumers that is nothing short of Gandhian. In the end, it is difficult to assume that the government can step in to, say, regulate the amount of sugar in a packet of biscuits or fat in a packet of crisps or salt in a packet of bhujia. The purpose of regulation is not to destroy consumer choice altogether — and some Indians will certainly want their bhujias salty as possible. However, there is little question that consumers should be nudged towards making the choices that they really want to make. Markets, including those for processed foodstuffs, work best when they are supported by robust disclosure requirements for manufacturers and an active consumer awareness movement.

It is worthwhile, also, to remember that this is India — and, just as the organised workforce is a tiny proportion of the real workforce, processed foods are a small proportion of what Indians actually eat. By the most generous of estimates, less than five per cent of agricultural output is processed. Most Indians get their junk food fix not from multinationals’ packets, but off the street. There is a strong case, therefore, for modesty in what supply-side state action can do to address the problem. Certainly, obesity in the Indian urban middle class is on the rise. According to the 2007 National Family Health Survey, obesity was increasing alarmingly in India’s urban areas; over a quarter of Indian town-dwellers were already overweight. This correlates with the increasing availability of packaged food. And yet, suggesting a causal relationship between the two would be fallacious. An increasingly sedentary lifestyle, cultural patterns that do not allow for vigorous exercise, cuisines heavy in carbohydrates and fats have much larger roles to play. But as awareness grows among urban Indians of the health benefits that flow from being more watchful about what they eat, India’s regulatory framework must adapt to assist their choice.