Nutrition adviser urges caution over heavily marketed products

Nutrition adviser Kaisa Kopliste told ERR’s Vikerraadio that consumers should be especially cautious about products carrying numerous health and benefit claims. She said advertisers often use misleading or unauthorised claims.

Kopliste said she had analysed claims made on the website of a soft drink manufacturer and found the information to be greatly exaggerated. She said it takes substantial work to verify such claims and that ordinary consumers can easily be misled or frightened.

“The more bells, whistles and claims a product has attached to it, the more cautious I would be,” Kopliste said. She noted that carrots, barley and potatoes are not usually marketed with claims about supporting the normal functioning of the immune system or other benefits.

According to Kopliste, the European Food Safety Authority, or EFSA, assesses the claims that can be used in marketing, while the PTA is responsible for oversight in Estonia. Only a limited number of claims are permitted, and they must be scientifically substantiated. Food and food supplements may not be presented as preventing, easing or curing a disease or pain.

Kopliste said it was unfair for some producers to gain a competitive advantage by attaching dishonest claims to their products. “If something seems too good to be true, it is not true,” she said, adding that her aim was to increase consumer awareness.

She also warned that people who hire personal trainers may assume the trainers have expertise in nutrition. In Estonia, however, completing nutrition training is not required to obtain a trainer’s professional qualification, Kopliste said.

She said she had seen trainers pass on dietary beliefs from their own childhoods, including advice that encouraged preteens to diet. Kopliste described such cases as particularly troubling and said she had encountered them both among adults and children with eating disorders.

Kopliste said eating disorders affect many people in Estonia. She distinguished between diagnosed eating disorders and disordered eating, which can involve obsessive thoughts about food and a strong dieting mentality before a diagnosis has been made.

An eating disorder is not simply a diet that has gone too far, she said, describing it as a severe psychiatric illness. She said eating disorders and opioid addiction share the highest mortality rate among psychiatric illnesses.

Kopliste also said evening cravings for sweets can be linked to habits and routines. By late evening, people may have exhausted their willpower, while the body can begin to expect food at a familiar time. If someone eats sweets at 10.30 p.m. every night, she said, a biological cue will eventually start to signal that it is time to do so.