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HEALTH

French supermarkets to test colour-coded ‘nutrition logos’

Four logos are going to be added to selected products in French supermarkets in a bid to see if they'll make customers eat healthier.

French supermarkets to test colour-coded 'nutrition logos'
Photo: AFP
Usually you're told to read the small print, but soon it might not be necessary – at least if we're talking about the list of ingredients on the back of supermarket items. 
 
The new idea, revealed by France's health minister on Tuesday, is simple:
 
Four colours, four different levels of nutrition. These labels get added to over 800 products in 50 supermarkets across France.
 
“My goal is to get everyone to evaluate what they're buying with a simple glance,” Health Minster Marisol Touraine told Le Parisien newspaper.
Researchers will monitor people's buying habits, then compare them with those of shoppers in other supermarkets that don't have the nutritional labels on their products.
 
“Obviously this isn't about comparing a tub of yoghurt with a pizza – it's about making a choice between two different yoghurts or two pizzas,” Touraine said. 
 
She added that the move was part of a larger fight to get France healthy, not least considering that a third of French people were overweight and that the number of diabetics was on the rise.
 
The experiment will begin in September and run for three months. If successful, Touraine aims to roll the new colour-coding system out across France next year. 
 
France saw a raft of controversial health reforms last year, part of which saw a crackdown on obesity. It included the banning of unlimited refills of soft drinks and harsher penalties for binge drinkers.  
 
Photo: Tobyotter/Flickr

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HEALTH

Lengthy waiting times at Danish hospitals not going away yet: minister

Danish Minister for the Interior and Health Sophie Løhde has warned that, despite increasing activity at hospitals, it will be some time before current waiting lists are reduced.

Lengthy waiting times at Danish hospitals not going away yet: minister

The message comes as Løhde was set to meet with officials from regional health authorities on Wednesday to discuss the progress of an acute plan for the Danish health system, launched at the end of last year in an effort to reduce a backlog of waiting times which built up during the coronavirus crisis.

An agreement with regional health authorities on an “acute” spending plan to address the most serious challenges faced by the health services agreed in February, providing 2 billion kroner by the end of 2024.

READ ALSO: What exactly is wrong with the Danish health system?

The national organisation for the health authorities, Danske Regioner, said to newspaper Jyllands-Posten earlier this week that progress on clearing the waiting lists was ahead of schedule.

Some 245,300 operations were completed in the first quarter of this year, 10 percent more than in the same period in 2022 and over the agreed number.

Løhde said that the figures show measures from the acute plan are “beginning to work”.

“It’s positive but even though it suggests that the trend is going the right way, we’re far from our goal and it’s important to keep it up so that we get there,” she said.

“I certainly won’t be satisfied until waiting times are brought down,” she said.

“As long as we are in the process of doing postponed operations, we will unfortunately continue to see a further increase [in waiting times],” Løhde said.

“That’s why it’s crucial that we retain a high activity this year and in 2024,” she added.

Although the government set aside 2 billion kroner in total for the plan, the regional authorities expect the portion of that to be spent in 2023 to run out by the end of the summer. They have therefore asked for some of the 2024 spending to be brought forward.

Løhde is so far reluctant to meet that request according to Jyllands-Posten.

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