Nutrient profiling and the regulation of marketing to children. Possibilities and pitfalls

This paper gives a definition of ‘nutrient profiling’ and outlines the scope ‘marketing of foods to children’ and it’s ‘regulation’ for the purposes of the paper. It then points out that nutrient profiling has many other purposes besides the regulation of marketing of foods to children. It briefly outlines the ideal process for developing a nutrient profile model and summarises how nutrient profiling models have been validated to date. It discusses how existing nutrient profiling models for the purpose of regulating the marketing of foods to children can be compared and it concludes that nutrient profiling has much potential but that there are several obstacles to overcome before an ideal model for regulating the marketing of foods can be agreed.

• Nutrient profiling is the classifying or ranking of foods according to their nutritional composition.
• Nutrient profiling has many applications including the regulating of food marketing.
• Better methods for validating and comparing nutrient profile models are needed.