Nutrition policies in Germany: a systematic assessment with the Food Environment Policy Index

Abstract

Objective: To systematically assess Germany's nutrition policies, to benchmark them against international best practices and to identify priority policy actions to improve population-level nutrition in Germany.

Design: We applied the Food Environment Policy Index (Food-EPI), a methodological framework developed by the International Network for Food and Obesity/non-communicable Diseases Research, Monitoring and Action Support (INFORMAS) network. Qualitative content analysis of laws, directives and other documents formed the basis of a multistaged, structured consultation process.

Setting: Germany.

Participants: The expert consultation process included fifty-five experts from academia, public administration and civil society.

Results: Germany lags behind international best practices in several key policy areas. For eighteen policy indicators, the degree of implementation compared with international best practices was rated as very low, for twenty-one as low, for eight as intermediate and for none as high. In particular, indicators on food taxation, regulation of food marketing as well as retail and food service sector policies were rated as very low to low. Identified priority actions included the binding implementation of nutrition standards for schools and kindergartens, a reform of the value added tax on foods and beverages, a sugar-sweetened beverage tax and stricter regulation of food marketing directed at children.

Conclusions: The results show that Germany makes insufficient use of the potential of evidence-informed health-promoting nutrition policies. Adopting international best practices in key policy areas could help to reduce the burden of nutrition-related chronic disease and related inequalities in nutrition and health in Germany. Implementation of relevant policies requires political leadership, a broad societal dialogue and evidence-informed advocacy by civil society, including the scientific community.

Keywords: Food environments; Health promotion; Nutrition; Public health; Public policies.

Fig. 1

Results of the prioritisation of policy actions. The codes M1–M18 are explained in Table 2. The size of the dots represents the scores on criterion 3 (contribution to reducing social inequalities in nutrition and health)