The Food and Drug Administration hopes to redesign nutrition labels on food and drink packages to emphasize calories this year.

The labels have been the same since 1972, when the FDA proposed what should be featured on food and drink packages, according to CNN.

“The information is already there, but people look over it,” said Emily Wigginton, registered dietician at Eliza Coffee Memorial Hospital.

Features such as calories, serving size and sugar counts are already on nutrition labels, but the color and text size of the print are identical.

The FDA has proposed to emphasize certain information to make it “as clear and useful to the consumer as possible,” according to their website.

“The more obvious we can make it, the more people will pay attention to it,” Wigginton said.

The last change made to the nutrition label was the addition of trans fat, said Jill Englett, instructor of human environmental sciences.

“We have an obesity epidemic in the nation because people over-consume calories,” Englett said. “What they’re trying to do is increase awareness (of calories) and lower obesity rate.”

The label may place emphasis on calories by making the text bolder or by changing the text color, according to CNN.

“Bolding calories is not the only thing that needs to change,” Englett said.

She said the current labels do not distinguish between natural and added sugars.

“It’s a step, but is it enough? I don’t know,” Englett said.

Wigginton said another way to combat the obesity problem is to clarify the serving size of food.

Tiffany Boykin, a senior and biology major, said she has been counting calories since January and just having the calorie count on the front of food packages helps her to be more conscious of what she eats.

Boykin said she learned how to count calories in a nutrition class and from there bought a book that has different food counts in it.

“It would probably make it better for people like me who watch it (added sugar and serving sizes),” Boykin said.

Even if the proposed changes go through, it will be another year or more before consumers see them because of the time it takes manufactures to change their labels, Englett said.

“A lot of times they lobby against label changes,” she said.

The updates are still being formed, according to the FDA website.