An estimated 19% of total energy used in the USA is taken up in the production and supply of food. It is important that ways of reducing this significant fuel consumption in the US food system are found. Researchers now set out strategies which could potentially cut fossil energy fuel use by as much as 50%.
Archive for category Policy
In January 2008 the UK government published their comprehensive obesity prevention plan entitled ‘Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives: a Cross-Government Strategy for England’.
The vision is to be the first major nation to reverse the rising tide of obesity and overweight in the population by ensuring that everyone is able to achieve and maintain a healthy weight. Our initial focus will be on children: by 2020, we aim to reduce the proportion of overweight and obese children to 2000 levels.
The major targets include:
A) Every child grows up eating well and enjoying being active.
B) The food is far healthier
C) Everyone is as active as they feel able
D) Government, businesses, local communities and others will create environments that make activity accessible, safe and the norm.
It is stated that the Government has a clear role to play in providing leadership for society to achieve this vision. (Thank you!)
Specific targets include:
Children
- Ask all schools to develop healthy lunch box policies, so that those not yet taking up school lunches are also eating healthily
- Invest to ensure all schools are healthy schools, including making cooking a compulsory part of the curriculum by 2011 for all 11–14 year-olds
- Invest £75 million in an evidence-based marketing program which will inform, support and empower parents in making changes to their children’s diet and levels of physical activity
- Invest in improving cycling infrastructure and skills in areas where child weight is a particular problem.
Healthier food choices
- Healthy Food Code of Good Practice, in partnership with the food and drink industry to reduce to the content of saturated fat, sugar and salt
- Allow local authorities to regulate the proliferation of fast food outlets in particular areas, e.g. near parks or schools
- Restrict advertising of unhealthy foods to children.
Physical activity
- Invest in a campaign to get a third of England walking at least 1,000 more steps daily by 2012
- Invest £30 million in selected towns to develop best practice models for whole-town approaches to promoting physical activity
- Encourage the entertainment technology industry to help parents manage the time that their children spend playing sedentary games.
Workplace health
- Explore how companies can best promote wellness among their staff and make healthy workplaces part of their core business model
- Pilot and evaluate a range of different approaches to using personal financial incentives to encourage healthy living, such as individuals losing weight and sustaining weight loss, eating more healthily or being consistently more physically active.
Funding
- The Government will make available an additional £372 million for promoting the achievement and maintenance of healthy weight over the period 2008–11. This is over and above the £1.3 billion investment in school food, sport and play and the £140 million further funding for Cycling.
The UK ministers obviously are committed to act and invest in the fight against obesity. I wish more countries would be as explicit, concrete and committed.
You can download the report here.
The government of Great Britain in July 2008 published this 144 page strategic report on the need for healthier food systems.
The report sets out to determine what the objectives of future food strategy should be and the measures needed to achieve them. The challenges are centred around A) economics B) health C) safety and D) environment. So the The future strategic policy objectives are to secure: fair prices, choice, access to food and food security through open and competitive markets; continuous improvement in the safety of food; a further transition to healthier diets; and a more environmentally sustainable food chain.
The UK Government has agreed to all the proposals set out in this report and will take them forward with immediate effect, including:
1) Bringing together, for the first time, integrated information and advice for consumers on the impacts of food on health and the environment.
2) Making it easier for consumers to make healthy choices when eating out.
3) Recognising that community groups, voluntary organisations and social enterprises have an important role to play in supporting activities that promote healthy eating and more sustainable production and consumption, and in encouraging public debate about food issues, and thus in promoting new social norms that facilitate behavioural and cultural change.
4) In view of the evidence of its importance for diet and health outcomes, making further progress with the 5 A DAY campaign is a priority. Renewed focus is needed on targeting groups where intake remains low, such as low-income families, and on working with industry to take the campaign forward.
5) The public sector in England should be leading by example. More nutritious, environmentally sustainable food will be delivered through new minimum standards ensuring healthier food across the public sector.
6) Well-functioning, competitive markets should provide fair prices for consumers and a fair deal throughout the supply chain. Reducing distortions in agricultural trade and raising agricultural productivity in the developing world would improve global food security.
7) Recent rises in food commodity prices call for a concerted international response.
8) The Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser is commissioning a major new study to examine how the global food system needs to evolve in a world adapting to, and mitigating, climate change.
9) On-farm GHG emissions are set to be the focus of increasing attention in the years ahead.
10) UK consumers spend an average of £420 per household each year on food that they then throw away. Eliminating household food waste would deliver major benefits.
The Prime Minister has asked the Cabinet Office to establish and support a Food Strategy Task Force to drive forward the implementation of all the measures in this report.
Selected high lights from reading the report:
On actions against the obesity epidemic this report is refers to the evidence base developed by the Government’s Foresight programme. The Government has set out a separate strategy to tackle obesity in England – Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives. This establishes a framework for action in areas including: children, food and activity incentives (p 79).
A surprisingly detailed plan for making CO2 footprint labeling scheeme is included on page 59. The report also cites a survey finding 60% of consumers thought that retailers should make it easier for them to make sustainable choices by introducing higher standards in some product areas. This is termed “Choice editing” (p 61).
On page 52 you can read: ‘Behaviour (i.e. personal choices) will need to change over time if the societal challenges such as climate change and obesity are to be addressed, but the Government’s licence to influence these behaviours or limit the options has boundaries. Over time such boundaries may move as social norms change, as happened with seatbelts in cars and smoking, but the process of cultural evolution takes time’. An urging task is how this process of much needed cultural evolution best can be facilitated. Any suggestions?
Finally I’m looking very much forward to reading the results of the following three commitments:
- By December 2008 the first proposal for a new programme to make it easier for consumers to make healthy choices when eating out.
- By September 2008 the new 5 A DAY action plan will be finalised.
- The government will commission research to develop a smarter system for calculating greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. This research will be completed by 2013.
All in all this is an impressive report. Even though the report does not mention speciffic new funding for the many priorities, one can hope that the endorsement by Government of all the proposals will make a difference. I wish many other governments would make similar reports.
On July 30th a bill cleared the U.S. House of Representatives in a 326-102 vote. It will authorize the FDA to police cigarette labeling and recall tobacco products seen as unreasonably harmful.
The FDA also would have to approve all new cigarettes and other tobacco products, and set standards for so-called reduced-risk products. The agency would not be empowered to ban cigarettes or require nicotine levels of zero.
The bill would authorize millions of dollars of fees levied on the industry starting in fiscal 2009 to fund the program.
Unfortunately The White House is likely to veto the bill.
The European Commission has launched a campaign to inform consumers of the benefits of organic food.
Potential policy intervention are systematically identified for each level of governance (local,state, national, international and organisational) in each sector of the food system (primaryproduction, food processing, distribution, marketing, retail, catering and food service) and each sector that influences physical activity environments (infrastructure and planning, education, employment, transport, sport and recreation).
Gary Sacks, Boyd A Swinburn and Mark A Lawrence published this important article in Australia and New Zealand HealthPolicy in June 2008.
Wal-Mart says it will buy $400 million in local fruits and vegetables this year to reduce transportation costs that increase food prices.
Shifting from red meat and dairy products to chicken, fish, eggs, or a vegetable-based diet achieves more CO2 reduction than buying all locally sourced food.
In June 2006 Nordic ministers signed the Nordic Plan of Action on better health and quality of life through diet and physical activity. It’s a plan with mesurable and binding targets for 2011 and 2021.
On page 18 in the Nordic Actionplan the following statement on regulating marketing of unhealthy foods to children can be found:
“The advertising and marketing of less healthy foods affect
children’s and youth’s consumption of and attitudes towards
foods and should therefore be restricted. The Nordic
countries will hold the EU Commission to its ultimatum
to industry on stopping all advertising and marketing of
unhealthy food directed at children, and will together demand
EU legislation if the current practices are not brought
to an end through self-regulation”.
Find the Nordic Plan of Action on better health and quality of life through diet and physical activity here.
Professor of Nutrition and Food Studies Marion Nestle from Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University gave an excellent key note lecture at the 9’th Nordic Nutrition Conference on Tuesday June 3rd 2008.
See her talk on YouTube: PART 1 – PART 2 – PART 3
or Listen to an MP3 file with her talk (36 MB)
Abstract:
In today’s era of plentiful food production, dietary advice is generally designed to help the public prevent obesity (eatless, move more), obtain the full complement of essential nutrients (eat a variety of fruits, vegetables, and whole grainfoods), and avoid foods of low nutrient density (don’t eat too much junk food). Increasingly, the public also demandsfood choices that address food miles, carbon footprints, environmental impact, and other aspects of sustainable foodproduction. Together, these concerns constitute a foods systems approach to dietary advice, one that recognizes theinextricable links among agriculture, food, nutrition, and health. From an international perspective, a shift to sustainablediets would have profound economic effects on the producers of food commodities, food products, and meals producedoutside the home. Such a shift also would affect food prices, international food trade, and relationships among the foodindustry, government agencies, and food and nutrition professionals. In free-market economies, any large-scale changein dietary choices has consequences for food producers and is, therefore, political. Much of what can be observed inagricultural production and food product development and marketing can be understood as an attempt to maintain salesin the midst of a food social movement. This movement is fragmented among many smaller movements, all of whichhave as goals diets that are healthier for people and for the planet. In this sense, promotion of sustainable diets is anexample of democracy in action and well worth supporting in all its various manifestations.
For more information on Marion Nestle see www.foodpolitics.com or her blog at www.whattoeatbook.com. Or view her Google lecture on What to eat.