Study: Food packaging could warn parents about choking hazards for kids

In addition to letting consumers know what goes into its food products, a company’s food labels can and should alert customers to problems that come with physical shapes of the food. One study that has been making headlines suggests that food items could come with choking warnings to reduce the amount of childhood incidents that happen every year. CNN reported about this research, which comes from from Ohio-based scientists that found an average of 12,400 child choking accidents occur every year.

The problem seems to stem from foods that are more solid than advertised, and thus have a great potential for obstruction. While the study reportedly indicates that younger children are at the greatest risk, the data comes from kids up to age 15, evaluated over a period of eight years. The 1-4 year age bracket appears to be at the highest risk, with more than 60 percent of choking experiences happening then.

While some of the foods that could cause a danger may seem obvious, Dr. Gary Smith, one of the study’s authors, told CNN that there’s a lack of attention paid to edible hazards.

“We have done a great job in this country (of) preventing choking in children on toys,” he said. “Since the 1990s we’ve had laws and regulations, systems where we can monitor these injuries when they happen. We have no such systems in place currently for food.”

Making labels that cover all of the bases for a food company may seem like too much of a demand, but it’s an important function that creative teams can approach with the right tools in hand, such as a color label printer.