Policies to promote healthy eating in Europe: a structured review of policies and their effectiveness

Abstract

This review provides a classification of public policies to promote healthier eating as well as a structured mapping of existing measures in Europe. Complete coverage of alternative policy types was ensured by complementing the review with a selection of major interventions from outside Europe. Under the auspices of the Seventh Framework Programme's Eatwell Project, funded by the European Commission, researchers from five countries reviewed a representative selection of policy actions based on scientific papers, policy documents, grey literature, government websites, other policy reviews, and interviews with policy-makers. This work resulted in a list of 129 policy interventions, 121 of which were in Europe. For each type of policy, a critical review of its effectiveness was conducted, based on the evidence currently available. The results of this review indicate a need exists for a more systematic and accurate evaluation of government-level interventions as well as for a stronger focus on actual behavioral change rather than changes in attitude or intentions alone. The currently available evidence is very heterogeneous across policy types and is often incomplete.

Individual user involvement at Healthy Life Centres: a qualitative study exploring the perspective of health professionals

“…Examples of national initiatives aiming for the adoption and maintenance of healthy lifestyle behaviours are physical activity programmes such as the “Exercise on Prescription” (Sørensen, Sørensen, Skovgaard, Bredahl, & Puggaard, 2011) and “Physical Activity on Prescription” (Olsson et al, 2015; Rödjer, Jonsdottir, & Börjesson, 2016) programmes initiated in Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and Finland. Many countries have also developed policies to promote healthy eating (Capacci et al, 2012). …”

Importance of mental performance in parental choice of food for children aged 4–10 years: a study in four European countries

“…Cultural differences in attitudes to foods are well recognised (25,26) , but accounting for differences between countries in our results is to some extent speculative as this was not explicitly explored by the questionnaire. It may, however, reflect national differences in policies and public health messages (27) . Lower prioritisation of the effect of food on mental performance indicates the potential for educating parents and building public awareness.…”

Family eating out-of-home: a review of nutrition and health policies

“…This review and another review of European nutrition policies (91) have found measures most frequently used by policies are those that allow consumers to make more informed choices. Apart from school food policies, strategies to improve the OH food environment are not nearly as well articulated or advocated.…”

“…It found that although OH food still remains excessive in energy, fat and Na, modest improvements were seen 18 months post implementation of menu labelling regulations (100) . Future evaluations may also consider responses that the consumer might make as a result of nutrition information, such as compensatory food choices at the dining occasion or in subsequent meals (91) .…”