Public Perspectives on FDA-Proposed Front-of-Package Nutrition Labeling: Evidence from Public Comments

Front-of-Package Nutrition Labeling (FOPNL) has emerged as a prominent policy tool to improve dietary quality and support informed consumer choice. In 2025, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) proposed a rule mandating most packaged foods to display front-of-package disclosures for saturated fat, sodium, and added sugar. Despite growing policy momentum, limited empirical evidence has documented how different stakeholder groups perceive and respond to the proposed rule. This study applied a text-as-data framework to systematically analyze public comments submitted to the FDA. We combined word-frequency analysis, sentiment analysis, and structural topic modeling to identify key themes, quantify stakeholder attitudes, and examine variation in topic prevalence. Our results show substantial heterogeneity in both content and tone of public comments. Overall sentiment towards the proposed rule is moderately positive. In terms of comment content, topics such as label clarity and usability, scientific evidence and health impacts, regulatory design, exemptions, and trade implications are identified. In addition, stakeholders’ sentiment scores vary across different topics. These findings highlight developing transparent, scientific evidence-based, and adaptable regulatory frameworks is essential to balance public health objectives with economic and industry considerations and to ensure the long-term effectiveness and success of FOPNL policy implementation.