Can warning labels help to guide consumers and counter obesity?

By early June, just days before Colombia’s deadline for companies to start putting labels on food and drinks so that consumers can easily identify products with excess sodium or sugar, saturated or trans fats, or artificial sweeteners, grocery store shelves were already full of packages with the warnings in the shape of black-and-white octagons. And Carolina Piñeros, the executive director of Red PaPaz, part of the coalition of civil society groups that had been pressing for the labels, was jubilant.

Piñeros told Devex that early research had found, “people are already taking into account the labeling in order to define what to buy,” she said.

The first labels had actually started to appear soon after Colombia’s administration issued a resolution in December 2022 clarifying a law adopted months before requiring the warnings. Now with the labels becoming mandatory and more widespread, she hopes they might encourage a broader shift in Colombian purchasing habits toward healthier options.