Obesity Research Science Board Advisory Committee Meeting April 22, 2004

1
Obesity ResearchScience Board Advisory
Committee MeetingApril 22, 2004

• David W K Acheson
• Chief Medical Officer, Director Food Safety and
  Security Staff,
• Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition

2
Research OWG approach

• One of the mandates of the OWG was to identify
  applied and basic research needs that include the
  development of healthier foods as well as a
  better understanding of consumer behavior and
  motivation.

3
Overall Approach

• Principle was to determine the main research
  topics that are mission relevant to FDA
• Document current and relevant research related to
  the mission relevant topics
• Identify knowledge gaps

4
Three Main Areas Examined

• Labeling
• Restaurants
• Nutrition Facts Panel
• Translational Research
• Neonatal imprinting
• Genomics, Proteomics, Metabolomics
• Impact of caloric restriction
• Other areas
• Drugs and devices
• Food additives
• Dietary supplements

5
Labeling Research

• Focus groups
• Restaurant label determine consumer reaction to
  menus that include caloric information.
• Food label determine consumer reaction to
  Nutrition Facts Panel
• Calories DV, eliminating calories from fat,
• Adding more information on multi-serving packages
  to show actual calories and DV in package
• c. Messages Determine what is most effective for
  conveying sound nutritional message.

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Labeling Research

• Development of a social sciences model to help
  determine factors that influence dietary and
  weight management.
• Review of literature to
• identify factors affecting food behavior
• catalogue existing data
• Develop quantitative model
• individual decisions affecting weight
• physical activity, food choice
• attitudinal, behavioral, environmental factors
• Useful in cost benefit analyses
• food labeling regulation
• policy development

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Consumers Perceptions and Attitudes

• Overweight vs. Obesity
• Some indication that the former is of little
  consequence to consumers
• Perception of weight status
• Adults and teenagers misperceive
• Men underestimate
• Healthy/underweight women over estimate
• Parents misjudge the weight of their children
• Consumers perception of their diet
• Tendency to think you are eating a more healthy
  diet than you actually are
• Recent focus group studies on obesity
• Parents children
• Perception of obesity, access to information,
  perceived barriers, motivators
• Conclusions Emphasize incremental change, beware
  of over-saturation with health information, focus
  on child education

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Knowledge Gaps

• Information used to facilitate consumers weight
  management decisions.
• Need for qualitative and quantitative research
• Consumer reaction to the food label (e.g.
  highlighting calories, listing the quantitative
  amounts of nutrients in multi-size packages)
• Consumer reaction to and effectiveness of
  restaurant nutrition information (e.g. listing
  information about calories, fat and sodium)
• Consumer dietary behavior and attitudes toward
  weight management

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Knowledge Gaps

• 2. Relationship between obesity and food
  consumption patterns
• Relationship between obesity and the frequency of
  foods consumed in different locations (e.g. home,
  fast food, restaurants)
• Impact of socioeconomic status and ethnic
  background
• Factors that contribute to overeating (e.g.
  supersize portions)

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Forumulation Research

• Qualitative investigation to understand what
  determines food product reformulation
• Do current regulations offer either a barrier or
  incentive for the production of healthy foods?
• Discussions with key industry personnel through
  third party contractor
• Reformulation by manufacturers
• food labeling, label claims
• changes in regulations
• incentives

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Knowledge Gaps

• 3. Incentives to product reformulation
• Explore the barriers and incentive to the
  development of healthier foods
• Do incentives (e.g. label prominence) impact
  industry on development of healthier foods
• Do barriers (e.g. regulatory hurdles) have an
  impact on development of healthier foods.
• If so to what degree and how can these be
  addressed?

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Other Areas to Consider

• Drugs and devices
• Food additives
• Dietary supplements

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Knowledge Gaps

• 4. Potential for FDA-regulated products to be
  unintentionally contributing to obesity
• Weight gain may be an unintended and under
  recognized complication of certain medications
• This has not been consistently measured,
  evaluated and considered as an adverse effect
• Need to determine if this is a problem
• Potentially develop an animal model to study long
  term effects on weight with medications

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Basic Science

• Neonatal imprinting
• Impact of developmental programming during
  early development when metabolic pathways are
  being established in the fetus and neonate.
•    Omics to identify susceptibilities
• Linking genetics with subsequent obesity through
  genomics
• proteomics and metabolomics.
• Effects of caloric restriction or sudden weight
  loss on metabolism
• Over the last 10 years research at NCTR has
  examined metabolic and disease outcome effects
  (e.g., free radical formation, malignant tumor
  rates) of less than ad lib feeding and rapid
  weight reduction. 

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Knowledge Gaps

• 5. Translational Research
• Essential for FDA to use basic research in
  developing regulatory policies, especially NIH.
• Developmental imprinting to determine the impact
  of fetal or neonatal exposure on future weight
• Use of omics to identify how FDA-regulated
  products modify risk factors for weight gain
• Development of animal models for effects of diet,
  drugs therapy, long-term weight maintenance.

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Conclusions

• Calories are a critical element
• Understanding consumers
• Food label
• Eating habits
• Weight management
• Develop healthier foods
• Input from basic research in development of
  regulatory policy