Entries invited for two design competitions to promote low-salt-and-sugar healthy diets
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"Salt and sugar are closely related to health. Excessive salt intake from food will increase the possibility and risk of developing hypertension, stroke and coronary heart disease. Excessive sugar intake from food may cause one to be overweight and have dental caries. To achieve the goal of reducing salt and sugar intake on a community-wide basis, we should first work along three directions: 'starting from an early age', 'enhancing transparency of information' and 'strengthening publicity and education'. These will help develop a low-salt-and-sugar culture and stimulate consumers' demand for low-salt-and-sugar diets. The two competitions are promotional initiatives to achieve this target," a Government spokesman said today (May 2).
To help consumers identify low-salt and low-sugar pre-packaged food easily and make informed choices, as well as encourage the trade to provide more varieties of such products, the CRSS proposed to introduce a voluntary "low-salt-low-sugar" labelling scheme for pre-packaged food. To this end, the CRSS, the Food and Health Bureau (FHB), the Centre for Food Safety (CFS) of the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department and the Department of Health (DH) are jointly organising the Label Design Competition. The CRSS and the Government may consider adopting winning entries in the labelling scheme to be launched later, i.e. the winning entries may become the labels to be shown on the pre-packaged food participating in the labelling scheme.
Participants of the Label Design Competition are required to design a set of four simple and easy-to-understand front-of-pack labels for "low salt", "no salt", "low sugar" and "no sugar" to assist consumers to easily recognise whether pre-packaged food is low-salt or low-sugar or has no salt or no sugar. The champion, the first runner-up and the second runner-up will be awarded certificates and electronic appliance coupons ranging in value from $4,800 to $2,400.
To remind the public to be conscious of reducing the salt and sugar content in food and encourage them to reduce salt and sugar intake with the use of nutrition labels, the CRSS, the FHB, the Education Bureau, the CFS and the DH, in collaboration with the Committee on Home-School Co-operation, are jointly organising the Slogan Writing cum Poster Design Competition.
The Slogan Writing cum Poster Design Competition comprises four categories, namely Junior Primary, Senior Primary, Junior Secondary and Senior Secondary. Participants are required to drive home the importance of a low-salt-and-sugar healthy diet by expressing the ideas of how to reduce dietary intake of salt and sugar or how to do so with the use of nutrition labels. Students who win the Best Slogan Award in each category of the Slogan Design Competition will be awarded certificates and book gift vouchers worth $600. The champion, the first runner-up, the second-runner up, the Most Liked Award and the Best Presentation Award of each category of the Poster Design Competition will be awarded certificates and book gift vouchers ranging in value from $2,400 to $1,000. Schools with students participating in the competitions will also be commended. The winning entries may be adopted by the CRSS and the Government and featured in Government's promotional materials.
The prize presentation ceremony of the competitions will be held at the CFS' Food Safety Day in October this year.
Application for the competitions has started today. The deadline for applications is July 7. Members of the public or students who are interested in participating in the competitions may visit the CFS' website (www.cfs.gov.hk) for details. For enquiries, please call 2746 5233 or email cfs2017@roadshow.com.hk.
Ends/Tuesday, May 2, 2017
Issued at HKT 19:37
Issued at HKT 19:37
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