Suchergebnisse

In 2016, the South African government proposed a 20% sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) tax. Protracted consultations with beverage manufacturers and the sugar industry followed. This resulted in a lower sugar-based beverage tax, the Health Promotion Levy (HPL), of approximately 10% coming into effect in April 2018. We provide a synthesis of findings until April 2021. Studies show that despite the lower rate, purchases of unhealthy SSBs and sugar intake consumption from SSBs fell. There were greater reductions in SSB purchases among both lower socioeconomic groups and in subpopulations with higher SSB consumption. These subpopulations bear larger burdens from obesity and related diseases, suggesting that this policy improves health equity. The current COVID-19 pandemic has impacted food and nutritional security. Increased pandemic mortality among people with obesity, diabetes, and hypertension highlight the importance of intersectoral public health disease-prevention policies like the HPL, which should be strengthened.

In 2016, the South African government proposed a 20% sugar‐sweetened beverage (SSB) tax. Protracted consultations with beverage manufacturers and the sugar industry followed. This resulted in a lower sugar‐based beverage tax, the Health Promotion Levy (HPL), of approximately 10% coming into effect in April 2018. We provide a synthesis of findings until April 2021. Studies show that despite the lower rate, purchases of unhealthy SSBs and sugar intake consumption from SSBs fell. There were greater reductions in SSB purchases among both lower socioeconomic groups and in subpopulations with higher SSB consumption. These subpopulations bear larger burdens from obesity and related diseases, suggesting that this policy improves health equity. The current COVID‐19 pandemic has impacted food and nutritional security. Increased pandemic mortality among people with obesity, diabetes, and hypertension highlight the importance of intersectoral public health disease‐prevention policies like the HPL, which should be strengthened.

BACKGROUND: The Chilean government implemented the first phase of a comprehensive marketing policy in 2016, restricting child-directed marketing of products high in energy, total sugars, sodium or saturated fat (hereafter "high-in"). OBJECTIVES: To examine the role that high-in TV food advertising had in the effect of the policy on consumption of high-in products between 2016 and 2017. METHODS: Dietary data were obtained from 24-hour diet recall measured in 2016 (n=940) and 2017 (n=853), pre- and post-policy, from a cohort of 4–6 y children. Television use was linked to analyses of food advertisements to derive individual-level estimates of exposure to advertising. A multilevel mediation analysis examined direct and indirect effects of the policy through advertising exposure. RESULTS: Children's high-in food consumption and advertising exposure declined significantly from 2016 to 2017 (p<0.01). Consumption changes were not significantly mediated by changes in advertising exposure, which might suggest other elements of the Chilean Law potentially driving decreases in consumption to a greater extent than TV ads. CONCLUSIONS: Preschoolers' exposure to high-in advertising and consumption of high-in products decreased post-policy. Further research is needed to understand how marketing changes will relate to dietary changes after full implementation of the law and in the long term.

Governments can use fiscal policies or regulation to influence the prices of products with potential health impacts, aiming to change their consumption. In particular, policies aimed at raising prices, such as taxation, have caused concerns because they may impose an unfair financial burden on low-income households. We estimated patterns of expenditure on potentially unhealthy products by socioeconomic status, based on household expenditure surveys, with a primary focus on low- and middle-income countries, and we found that price policies affect the consumption and expenditure of a larger number of high-income than low-income households, and any resulting price increases are financed disproportionately by high-income households. As a share of all household consumption, however, price increases are often a larger burden for low-income households, depending on how much consumption is changed, most consistently in the case of tobacco. Larger health benefits will likely accrue to individual low-income consumers, due to their stronger response to price changes, but depending on initial consumption and associated health risks. In the case of taxing unhealthy products, a potentially larger financial burden on low-income households can be mitigated by a pro-poor use of the tax revenues generated.

BACKGROUND: The Australian federal government will soon release voluntary sodium reduction targets for 30 packaged food categories through the Healthy Food Partnership. Previous assessments of voluntary targets show variable industry engagement, and little is known about the extent that major food companies and their products contribute to dietary sodium purchases among Australian households. METHODS: The aim of this cross-sectional study was to identify the relative contribution that food companies and their products made to Australian household sodium purchases in 2018, and to examine differences in sodium purchases by household income level. We used 1 year of grocery purchase data from a nationally representative consumer panel of Australian households who reported their grocery purchases (the Nielsen Homescan panel), combined with database that contains product-specific sodium content for packaged foods and beverages (FoodSwitch). The top food companies and food categories were ranked according to their contribution to household sodium purchases. Differences in per capita sodium purchases by income levels were assessed by 1-factor ANOVA. All analyses were modelled to the Australian population in 2018 using sample weights. RESULTS: Sodium data were available from 7188 households who purchased 26,728 unique products and purchased just under 7.5 million food product units. Out of 1329 food companies, the top 10 accounted for 35% of unique products and contributed to 58% of all sodium purchased from packaged foods and beverages. The top three companies were grocery food retailers each contributing 12–15% of sodium purchases from sales of their private label products, particularly processed meat, cheese and bread. Out of the 67 food categories, the top 10 accounted for 73% of sodium purchased, particularly driven by purchases of processed meat (14%), bread (12%) and sauces (11%). Low-income Australian households purchased significantly more sodium from packaged products than high-income households per capita (452 ...