Health Claims vs. Health Information: The Missing Layer Between Permission and Understanding

Food regulation decides which health claims a producer may make, and nutrition labels disclose isolated facts. Both functions are built with care, and across jurisdictions they converge on the same design: permission and factual disclosure are structured, while usable understanding is left to the reader. This paper traces that pattern through five regulatory regimes and finds it consistent across different regulatory designs. The comprehension evidence confirms the consequence - health claims can shift perception and purchasing while producing uneven understanding, while fuller nutrition information is often only selectively attended. This is not a weakness in claims regulation; it is the edge of what a permission instrument is built to do. The paper proposes no model. It sets out the boundaries any response would need to respect: that it could not be another claim, advice, or a seal of approval, and could not let contextual information drift into marketing.

Series information: Structural Gaps in Product Information Systems (SGPIS): A research series examining where product-level information is generated, lost, or made non-portable across food and agriculture systems. Published by Altibbe Inc.