The 5 Most Critical Things to Look for on a Nutrition Label to Prevent Diabetes

Calories

Seems obvious that calories count, right? But the calories and serving size aren’t always easy to understand. First, here’s a guide to making sense of nutrition labels. “The serving size is meant to represent the average quantity that people eat. However, this can be misleading,” says Jaime Lehman, RD, CDE, Diabetes Program Coordinator for Banner Health. If a serving size is one slice of bread and you eat two, you have to multiply all the nutrition numbers by two—including calories. Being overweight or obese can mean a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes. “Reducing weight by 5 to 7 percent can significantly reduce your risk of developing type 2 diabetes,” says Kayla Jaeckel, RD, a certified diabetes educator at Diabetics and Cardiovascular Alliance, Mount Sinai Health System. The amount of calories needed daily varies on factors such as activity level and basal metabolic rate. Thankfully, the Food and Drug Administration is requiring new labels on most packaged foods by July 2018. Among other things, the new labels will be consumer friendly, featuring the calorie and serving size information more prominently.