Are Reduced-Fat and Low-Sugar Foods Actually Healthier? Experts Weigh In

How Do You Decide if Regular or Reduced-Fat Food Is the Healthier Choice?

“A claim on the front of a package is a spotlight, not a report card,” says Anjali Srivastava, MD, a global health and lifestyle medicine physician in Potomac, Maryland.

“Flip the package over, match the serving sizes, and ask: Which of these am I most likely to overdo today?” Dr. Srivastava says.

That means a reduced-fat version of a food isn’t automatically the better choice. For example, with a product like reduced-fat sour cream, you’ll want to compare it with the regular version to see how much fat actually decreased and whether sodium, added sugar, or other nutrients differ.

If you only eat a small amount of sour cream, this distinction may not matter much. “At a 1- to 2-tablespoon portion, the real difference is small — and how much you spoon on matters more than which tub you bought,” Srivastava adds.

Individual health needs can also influence the decision. Someone with high LDL (or “bad”) cholesterol may pay close attention to saturated fat, while someone with high blood pressure may focus on sodium.

“It makes sense to focus on what matters most for your health,” says Kelly L. Burgess, RDN, a founder of To Better Health in Woodbury, New Jersey. She recommends that consumers look beyond words like “reduced,” “no,” and “free.”

“Buying a car based on its paint job without looking under the hood won’t tell you what condition it’s in,” Burgess says. “A single-nutrient claim on the front of a package is similarly incomplete.”

Should You Just Avoid These Health-Hyped Foods Altogether?

Given how confusing it can be to understand health claims on product labels, you might wonder whether the takeaway is to simply avoid these foods altogether.

The study wasn’t designed to answer this question directly. But Burgess says the findings don’t necessarily mean a reduced-fat or reduced-sodium product has no place in an overall balanced diet.

“A product labeled ‘reduced fat’ or ‘reduced sodium’ can still fit into a healthy diet, but the claim alone does not tell you how processed the food is or whether it is a good choice overall,” she adds.

Burgess generally recommends making whole or minimally processed foods the foundation of your diet and considering packaged products in the context of your overall eating pattern.

Study Has Limitations

The study has several limitations. It analyzed newly launched products in a commercial database, rather than every packaged food on store shelves or the most commonly purchased items. It also used the UK Nutrient Profiling Model, which has specific thresholds for classifying foods and beverages as “less healthy.” And it was descriptive, meaning it can’t establish that reducing one nutrient caused another to increase.

In addition, the researchers underscore that their findings don’t mean nutrition claims are inaccurate or don’t meet labeling regulations.

“A claim can accurately describe a specific attribute of a product while still providing only partial information about its overall nutritional quality,” Dr. Zhou says. “The most important takeaway is that a single attribute-based claim tells consumers about that specific attribute, but does not necessarily indicate the product’s overall healthfulness.”

For grocery shoppers, that means treating a claim on the front of a food package as a starting point, rather than a conclusion.

“A claim tells you where to look, not what to decide,” Santiago says. “Check the Nutrition Facts label and ingredient list against what actually matters for your health, and the claim has done its job.”