17-18th April 2008, Riga, Latvia
We are here for a meeting of the EURO-PREVOB project. This is seeking to develop a methodology to map policies, both “on the books” and “on the streets”, that can address the increasing problem of obesity in Europe. We are interested in policies that influence both energy intake and expenditure, in other words, nutrition and physical activity. With support from the WHO, we were joined by many of the leading experts on food and physical activity from across Europe, who provided extremely valuable inputs into our thinking.
We began with a series of presentations that brought us up to date with developments in this field. Liz Dowler reminded us that, as we think about access to healthy food, we need to think about whether it is culturally appropriate food in an increasingly multi-cultural Europe. Mike Rayner reminded us that marketing involves 4 Ps: product, promotion, place, price. Effective action must address all of these. A key issue we need to address is food labelling. Although almost everyone has signed up to the need for labelling to inform the public, some companies are working hard to avoid the use of traffic light systems – red for danger, green for healthy – for the obvious reason that their products would have a line of red splodges. Instead they are pushing for more complex labels, often on the back rather than front of packs, that the public finds confusing (see link for UK Food Standards Agency evaluation). Mike also reported some very interesting evidence on the effects of so-called “fat-taxes”, or more generally increased taxes on unhealthy foods. In fact, in the EU, many foods are already taxed – in the UK there has been a very interesting legal action recently to decide whether a marshmallow is a cake or a biscuit, with very considerable financial implications for the Treasury. The question is whether the existing somewhat confused and contradictory regime can be refined to incorporate a health dimension. What the research showed was that simply taxing unhealthy foods would actually increase deaths. What is needed is an integrated policy that is linked to subsidies for healthy foods.
Tim Lobstein then took us through the tactics that are being used increasingly to market food to children. He reminded us of a study that looked at the range of foods marketed to children. Some products were low in fat (but high in sugar), some were low in sugar (but high in salt), so that only 1% of products were actually low in salt, saturates, fat and sugar. In other words, virtually all food aimed at children is junk.
Any parent will be familiar with some of the more obvious methods used to persuade children to consume energy dense foods, such as McDonalds’ Happy Meals, otherwise known as “edible entertainment”. Many of these products give away sets of toys, with the sets changing regularly to encourage children to eat enough to get the whole set. Then there are the links to “good causes” where companies distribute tokens that can be exchanged for school sports equipment and the like. We were reminded of Cadbury’s tokens, whereby, if one managed to consume 20,000 kcal of chocolate, one could get a netball. Then there are the companies offering free logos and ringtones for mobile phones, and of course once the numbers are logged, the children can be bombarded with advertising text messages. Or the books where children learn to count by placing M&Ms on pictures, no doubt eating a few as they do. It is clear that the regulators are many steps behind the industry.
So what is to be done? We were meeting in Latvia, a country where, unusually, the government has taken a strong stance against additives and colouring in food aimed at children. Leaving aside the emerging evidence that some additives may have harmful effects on children’s behaviour, we are faced with a situation in which colourings are used very extensively simply to make otherwise unattractive (and unhealthy) food attractive to children. There seems a strong argument for banning their use in food aimed at children.
So back to the project. Essentially, if we want to understand existing policies in a country, how they relate to needs, and the scope for further development, we need quite a lot of information. We will be focusing, first, on the “law on the books”. The idea is to identify a national focal point in each country who can convene a group of knowledgeable informants who can tell us about what policies are in place. Of course, that is just the first step, so we need them to tell us not only whether a policy exists but also whether it is written down , whether there are financial and human resources identified to implement it, and whether there are systems for monitoring, evaluation and accountability. The second focus is on “law on the streets”. Here we have to develop a means to capture what is happening in reality. Do the foods on sale in shops have nutritional labels? Can people afford to eat a healthy diet (and can they get to the shops that sell it)? Does the layout of the streets force people to use their cars or to walk of cycle? Finally, drawing on Marx’s comment that “the philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is, however, to change it”, we need to identify who the key stakeholders in a potential new policy might be, what their positions are, their interests, and their influence. We have a lot of work ahead of us!
We are here for a meeting of the EURO-PREVOB project. This is seeking to develop a methodology to map policies, both “on the books” and “on the streets”, that can address the increasing problem of obesity in Europe. We are interested in policies that influence both energy intake and expenditure, in other words, nutrition and physical activity. With support from the WHO, we were joined by many of the leading experts on food and physical activity from across Europe, who provided extremely valuable inputs into our thinking.
We began with a series of presentations that brought us up to date with developments in this field. Liz Dowler reminded us that, as we think about access to healthy food, we need to think about whether it is culturally appropriate food in an increasingly multi-cultural Europe. Mike Rayner reminded us that marketing involves 4 Ps: product, promotion, place, price. Effective action must address all of these. A key issue we need to address is food labelling. Although almost everyone has signed up to the need for labelling to inform the public, some companies are working hard to avoid the use of traffic light systems – red for danger, green for healthy – for the obvious reason that their products would have a line of red splodges. Instead they are pushing for more complex labels, often on the back rather than front of packs, that the public finds confusing (see link for UK Food Standards Agency evaluation). Mike also reported some very interesting evidence on the effects of so-called “fat-taxes”, or more generally increased taxes on unhealthy foods. In fact, in the EU, many foods are already taxed – in the UK there has been a very interesting legal action recently to decide whether a marshmallow is a cake or a biscuit, with very considerable financial implications for the Treasury. The question is whether the existing somewhat confused and contradictory regime can be refined to incorporate a health dimension. What the research showed was that simply taxing unhealthy foods would actually increase deaths. What is needed is an integrated policy that is linked to subsidies for healthy foods.
Tim Lobstein then took us through the tactics that are being used increasingly to market food to children. He reminded us of a study that looked at the range of foods marketed to children. Some products were low in fat (but high in sugar), some were low in sugar (but high in salt), so that only 1% of products were actually low in salt, saturates, fat and sugar. In other words, virtually all food aimed at children is junk.
Any parent will be familiar with some of the more obvious methods used to persuade children to consume energy dense foods, such as McDonalds’ Happy Meals, otherwise known as “edible entertainment”. Many of these products give away sets of toys, with the sets changing regularly to encourage children to eat enough to get the whole set. Then there are the links to “good causes” where companies distribute tokens that can be exchanged for school sports equipment and the like. We were reminded of Cadbury’s tokens, whereby, if one managed to consume 20,000 kcal of chocolate, one could get a netball. Then there are the companies offering free logos and ringtones for mobile phones, and of course once the numbers are logged, the children can be bombarded with advertising text messages. Or the books where children learn to count by placing M&Ms on pictures, no doubt eating a few as they do. It is clear that the regulators are many steps behind the industry.
So what is to be done? We were meeting in Latvia, a country where, unusually, the government has taken a strong stance against additives and colouring in food aimed at children. Leaving aside the emerging evidence that some additives may have harmful effects on children’s behaviour, we are faced with a situation in which colourings are used very extensively simply to make otherwise unattractive (and unhealthy) food attractive to children. There seems a strong argument for banning their use in food aimed at children.
So back to the project. Essentially, if we want to understand existing policies in a country, how they relate to needs, and the scope for further development, we need quite a lot of information. We will be focusing, first, on the “law on the books”. The idea is to identify a national focal point in each country who can convene a group of knowledgeable informants who can tell us about what policies are in place. Of course, that is just the first step, so we need them to tell us not only whether a policy exists but also whether it is written down , whether there are financial and human resources identified to implement it, and whether there are systems for monitoring, evaluation and accountability. The second focus is on “law on the streets”. Here we have to develop a means to capture what is happening in reality. Do the foods on sale in shops have nutritional labels? Can people afford to eat a healthy diet (and can they get to the shops that sell it)? Does the layout of the streets force people to use their cars or to walk of cycle? Finally, drawing on Marx’s comment that “the philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is, however, to change it”, we need to identify who the key stakeholders in a potential new policy might be, what their positions are, their interests, and their influence. We have a lot of work ahead of us!
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