Project to find out how
European governments could fight obesity
September 20, 2004
In response to the alarming
rise in obesity across the developed world, a University of Sussex food
policy researcher is leading a project to find out how European governments
could fight the flab.
Tommorow (21 September) Dr Erik Millstone will meet senior public health
representatives from nine European countries at the University’s Science and
Technology Policy Research Unit to launch a cross-national comparative
study.
During the next two and a half years the researchers will look at issues
such as food labelling, food advertising and food subsidies in the EU and
within their own countries and feed the results into the study.
Dr Millstone, whose work has previously influenced UK Government policies on
food additives and BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalitis), says that the
obesity epidemic and its health implications are of major concern to all
European nations. “The UK has one of the highest rates, affecting nearly a
quarter of the population. Some of the other countries haven’t reached that
level yet, but they have faster growing rates of obesity. This is
particularly true among the new members of the European Union, especially
those in eastern Europe.”
Different countries currently use a variety of systems to try to address the
problem. In Finland some firms use a “traffic light” system with food
labelling to allow consumers to identify healthy "green" foods and "red" bad
foods. Other nations are in favour of subsidising healthy food and
increasing taxes on unhealthy food.
“What we’re doing is trying to capture perspectives from divergent
approaches to see which mixes of policies might be effective in which
countries," explains Dr Millstone. "It would be unrealistic to think that we
could produce one set of policies that would work in all countries, but I
hope this study will help to halt this juggernaut of obesity that’s rolling
over Europe.”
The project, entitled PORGROW (Policy options for responding to the growing
challenge from obesity: a cross-national comparative study), is funded by a
£153,000 grant from the European Commission. The countries taking part are
the UK, Finland, France, Greece, Italy, Spain, Poland, Hungary and Cyprus.