A Legal Perspective on EU Competence to Regulate the ‘Healthiness’ of Food

The EU has developed a detailed stringent set of food safety rules aimed at limiting or containing the risk that people experience negative health effects from the consumption of food. In doing so, the legislator has focused on food safety in a relatively narrow sense, not including the potential risks to human health of foods with, e.g., negative nutritional features. While EU food safety legislation seems successful in preventing food-borne illnesses, public focus has shifted to the growing prevalence of lifestyle-related illnesses. There is convincing scientific evidence of a correlation between obesity and non-communicable diseases, on the one hand, and unhealthy food on the other. The EU has taken initiatives to stop this development, but these are directed at guiding consumer choice rather than at regulating foods from the point of view of their composition and nutritional value. The question arises whether the EU would at all be competent to step in and regulate ‘food health’. This article analyses different elements in the EU Treaties with a particular view toward a possible legal basis for regulating food health.