By Gary Dinges

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

A new website launched by an Austin marketing firm lets consumers call out businesses that are allegedly making bogus health and fitness claims on packaging and in their advertisements.

EnviroMedia Social Marketing with the help of a nationally known team of advisers has rolled out LeanwashingIndex.com, a follow-up to its GreenwashingIndex.com site, which monitors companies' environmental claims. The firm said it will make no money from the site.

The term "leanwashing" is a variation on whitewashing, said EnviroMedia co-founder and Leanwashing Index co-creator Valerie Davis, with "lean" referring, in part, to the weight loss many products promise.

Consumers pick the ads featured and then rate them on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 designating promises believed to be "authentic" and 5 for those considered "bogus."

"With pizza considered a vegetable for school lunches ... we know consumers need something now to help them scrutinize some of the bogus health claims that abound in food and product advertising," Davis said.

A study conducted last year by Nielsen Global Research showed 59 percent of consumers said they were often unable to make sense of nutritional facts on food packaging.

Many also said they were skeptical of health claims companies make.

Companies whose ads are rated can either post comments on the site or email site administrators with responses.

Originally posted here:
New website lets consumers rate products' health, fitness claims