Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2020 Jul 10;6(5):562-583.
doi: 10.1002/osp4.423. eCollection 2020 Oct.

Costs, equity and acceptability of three policies to prevent obesity: A narrative review to support policy development

Tim Lobstein  1   2 , Margot Neveux  1 , Jane Landon  3
Affiliations
Review

Costs, equity and acceptability of three policies to prevent obesity: A narrative review to support policy development

Tim Lobstein et al. Obes Sci Pract. .

Abstract

Obesity prevention policies are a priority for many governments and intergovernmental agencies. Policy makers not only use systematic reviews of effectiveness but also consider contextual issues including cost and cost-effectiveness, equity, rights, acceptability and feasibility. To support their work, the present narrative review examines three contextual issues (costs, equity and acceptability) in relation to three policies for obesity prevention: sweetened beverage taxes, front-of-pack nutrition labelling and restrictions on advertising to children. Literature searches led to over 1100 documents, of which 125 informed the present review. Beverage taxes were found likely to be highly cost-effective, moderately favourable for health equity, supported by the public (depending on the use of revenues) and by health professionals and civil society groups and opposed by commercial interests. Depending on the design, front-of-pack nutritional labelling is likely to be highly cost-effective, moderately favourable for health equity, supported by the public, health professionals and civil society groups, and opposed by commercial interests. Restrictions on child-directed advertising are likely to be highly cost-effective in the longer term, moderately favourable for health equity, supported by the public, health professionals and civil society groups and opposed by commercial interests (unless voluntary). The evidence base needs strengthening, but the authors find that all three policies merit consideration by governmental authorities, and should be implemented to reduce obesity risk.

Keywords: Labelling; equity; marketing; taxes.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

No conflict of interest was declared.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
PRISMA charts for three policy interventions using Medline, Cochrane Library and Google Scholar
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD‐RisC) . Worldwide trends in body‐mass index, underweight, overweight, and obesity from 1975 to 2016: a pooled analysis of 2416 population‐based measurement studies in 128.9 million children, adolescents, and adults. Lancet, 2017;390:2627‐2642. Predictions to 2025 available at http://www.ncdrisc.org. - PMC - PubMed
    1. WHO . Global action plan for the prevention and control of NCDs 2013–2020. World Health Organization, Geneva, 2013 https://www.who.int/nmh/events/ncd_action_plan/en/
    1. Branca F, Nikogosian H, Lobstein T (eds). ‘Actions and policies to prevent obesity’ Chapter 13 in The Challenge of Obesity in the WHO European Region and the Strategies for Response. Copenhagen: World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe, 2007.
    1. World Obesity Federation and WHO . Taking Action on Childhood Obesity. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2018.
    1. OECD . The Heavy Burden of Obesity: The Economics of Prevention. Paris: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development; 10.1787/67450d67-en. - DOI

LinkOut - more resources