Aspectos legais e análise de conteúdo de propagandas impressas de alimentos com alegação de propriedades funcionais / Legal aspects and content analysis of folder-like food advertisement claiming functional properties

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2008

RESUMO

Publicity is widely used to promote and increase the sale of products. Its role is to make the product something desirable and necessary. In Brazil, health is considered to be a fundamental and universal right and, most importantly, a government obligation. Food advertisement must obey the sanitary legislation which establishes the limits for claims and makes it mandatory to place warning messages to allow sound consumer choices. To avoid confusion, Anvisa has standardized food claim procedures and has established January 2006 as deadline for the companies to make food labels and functional property and health claim ads comply with the legislation. This work aimed to evaluate whether folder-like advertisement of functional food and/or health claims of bioactive substances, isolated probiotics, and new foods comply with the legislation. Convenience, non- representative sampling was used and the approach was documented research by means of the content analysis methodology. A total of 286 ads of 36 products at 54 folders of 23 different manufacturers was analyzed, collected between March 2006 and March 2007 at health food stores, drugstores, supermarkets, and bakery shops in Juiz de Fora, Viçosa, Belo Horizonte and São Paulo or as publicity material sent by mail. None of the material analyzed was in compliance with the legislation, Act. 10674, which states that all commercialized food product must inform whether or not gluten is present in the formulation to prevent and control celiac disease in Brazil. It was observed that a high number of samples did not comply with Decree-law 986/69 and Anvisa`s resolutions. The main infractions were therapeutical property claims and omission of warning messages; 94% of the new food did not include any warning messages and 54% claimed functional or therapeutical properties. The non-compliance of the ads to legislation led to increased sanitary risk associated to induction of inadequate consumption. Evidences show the need to continuously increase surveillance of these food ads to protect public`s health from deceitful advertising.

ASSUNTO(S)

alimentos funcionais novos alimentos propaganda functional food new food advertisement ciencia de alimentos

ACESSO AO ARTIGO

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