Added sugars will appear on packaged-food labels for the first time under a sweeping Food and Drug Administration rule announced Friday, a change intended to show consumers how much sweetener manufacturers put into products that may also contain naturally occurring sugar. The redesigned Nutrition Facts panel, the first major overhaul since the familiar black-and-white box appeared in 1994, will also enlarge calorie counts and adjust serving sizes to reflect how Americans actually eat.

The rule gives most manufacturers until July 26, 2018, to comply; companies with less than $10 million in annual food sales will receive an additional year. FDA Commissioner Robert Califf said the revision updates a tool Americans have relied on for more than two decades and will help them make choices that reduce the risk of obesity and heart disease. The White House and FDA announcement described the action as the culmination of consumer research, public comments and changes in nutrition science.

Added sugar becomes a separate measure

The most contested change requires manufacturers to state both the grams of added sugar in a serving and its percentage of a daily value. Total sugar will remain on the panel, but the new indented line will distinguish sweeteners introduced during processing from sugars found naturally in foods such as fruit and milk. On a 2,000-calorie diet, the daily value for added sugar will be 50 grams, equivalent to 10 percent of calories.

The distinction gives shoppers information that the ingredient list cannot easily provide. Ingredients appear in descending order by weight, but manufacturers may use several forms of sugar, and the list does not quantify their combined contribution. A yogurt containing lactose and a sweetener, for example, may show substantial total sugar without revealing how much was added. The new line is designed to separate those sources.

The requirement follows the federal government’s 2015–2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, issued in January, which advised limiting added sugars to less than 10 percent of daily calories. Harvard nutrition researchers called the disclosure one of the revision’s most important advances. In a May 20 assessment, the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health said the measure could help consumers identify foods delivering calories without corresponding nutritional value, while arguing that clearer front-of-package guidance would still be useful.

Food-industry groups had resisted the added-sugar line, questioning whether the body metabolizes added and naturally occurring sugars differently and warning that consumers could be confused. Yet support within the industry was not uniform. The Washington Post reported that Mars and Nestlé backed the measure and that the Grocery Manufacturers Association called the broader update timely, even as sugar producers continued to object.

Serving sizes move closer to behavior

The rule also changes the denominator behind many nutrition claims. Federal law requires serving sizes to reflect the amount people customarily consume, not the quantity public-health officials believe they should eat. FDA’s reference amounts were largely based on surveys conducted in the 1970s and 1980s; they no longer match many present habits or package sizes.

A serving of ice cream will increase from one-half cup to two-thirds of a cup. A bottle of soda containing 20 ounces will generally be labeled as one serving because people usually drink the full container, rather than as the 2.5 servings often shown now. Packages that can reasonably be consumed either at once or over several sittings—such as a 24-ounce bottle of soda or a pint of ice cream—will carry two columns, one for a serving and another for the entire package.

Those revisions may produce larger calorie, sugar and sodium figures even where recipes do not change. That is the point: the panel will describe consumption more realistically. ABC News’s account of the rule emphasized that the dual-column format is meant to prevent a shopper from overlooking the nutrition contained in a package commonly finished in one sitting.

Calories gain prominence and nutrients change

Calories and serving sizes will appear in larger, bolder type, reflecting evidence that these are among the figures consumers most often seek. The percent Daily Value footnote will be rewritten in clearer language, and several underlying daily values will be updated to match newer scientific recommendations.

The list of mandatory vitamins and minerals will change as well. Vitamin D and potassium must be declared because inadequate intake has been associated with public-health concerns; calcium and iron will remain required. Vitamins A and C, deficiencies of which are now uncommon in the United States, will become optional. “Calories from fat” will disappear because research increasingly emphasizes the type of fat consumed rather than total fat calories, while total, saturated and trans fat amounts will remain.

A TIME explanation published Friday noted that the redesign leaves the panel’s essential structure intact while making calories more conspicuous and bringing the nutrient list closer to current dietary concerns. The government is trying to improve usefulness without forcing shoppers to learn a wholly new label.

A disclosure rule with consequences beyond the package

Nutrition labels do more than transmit facts at the point of sale. They can change what manufacturers sell. A required added-sugar figure creates a common measure across brands, making direct comparison easier and potentially encouraging companies to reformulate products before the compliance deadline. The larger calorie display and more realistic serving sizes could similarly alter package design and marketing claims.

The economic burden will be substantial because hundreds of thousands of products will require new labels, laboratory analysis or revised databases. A May 20 legal analysis by Covington & Burling advised companies that the two coordinated final rules change both the panel’s content and the serving-size regulations that determine its calculations. Manufacturers must review not only artwork but also formulations, reference amounts and products that qualify for special formats.

First Lady Michelle Obama, who made nutrition labeling part of her campaign against childhood obesity, said consumers would no longer need a microscope, calculator or nutrition degree to understand whether food is good for their families. Her Let’s Move announcement highlighted the prominent calories, clearer servings and added-sugar declaration as practical tools rather than dietary commands.

The rule does not tell consumers what to buy, and a label cannot by itself resolve unequal access to healthy food or the prevalence of diet-related disease. Its mechanism is narrower: make a standardized disclosure more faithful to current science and ordinary behavior. Because the Nutrition Facts panel appears on nearly every packaged food, however, even that narrow mechanism reaches millions of purchasing decisions each day—and gives manufacturers a powerful reason to reconsider what the numbers will show.