Alcohol companies are misleading people with ‘low sugar’ labels. A nationally representative poll exposed how alcohol companies use deceptive labels to hinder people’s recognition about the health risks of their own products. The number of people who understood that alcohol is unhealthy fell from 48% to 40% when a “low carb” claim was added, and fell to 37% when a “low sugar” claim was added on the label. This is a 22.9% decline in the recognition that alcohol is harmful to human health.
“All alcohol products increase the risk of cancer, regardless of their sugar or carbohydrate content,” Cancer Council says.
Low carb and low sugar labels hinder recognition of alcohol risks: In August 2023, the George Institute for Global Health conducted a nationally representative survey of 1,000 adults on behalf of Alcohol Change Australia that asked people to rate the healthiness of different alcoholic products, and to assess how low carb and low sugar messages would affect the number of alcoholic beverages they would consume.
The number of people who understood that alcohol is unhealthy fell from 48% to 40% when a low carb claim was added, and fell to 37% when a low sugar claim was added. This is a 22.9% decline in the recognition that alcohol is harmful to human health.