It’s almost only possible to turn on the radio, watch television or browse social networks by getting awoken by advertisements claiming that all we require for joy and affection is a sweet drink or an unhealthy snack. It’s not something that a delicious and affordable meal ready-to-eat can’t fix, and we’re being told.
Over the past several decades, our food and beverage environments have continuously pushed people to choose decisions that are detrimental to our health through pricing, marketing, and availability. The increase in advertisements has led to an increasing global obesity epidemic and nutritional problems as more people consume unhealthy food.
We all have the right to purchase whatever we can afford. However, commercial forces restrict our choices more than we realize. Recent research published in The Lancet shows that critical reasons for poor health, such as obesity and related noncommunicable diseases, are connected with companies with large pockets and the ability to influence individuals’ choices. They can do this by controlling the economic and political system and the underlying policy and regulatory practices.
Strategies for industry
How commercial companies create our food and beverage environments to maximize their profits are referred to as “commercial determinants of health.” They create a setting that encourages us to make unhealthy food choices.
There are three methods to accomplish this:
- We’re taught that in our adulthood, choices in food are a direct consequence of our own free will and the freedom to choose. However, for those with little money, this “freedom” is exercised in an environment that is heavily influenced – and limited by the choices producers and retailers decide to manufacture and sell.
- Marketing creates demand. Supermarkets are full of highly processed foods loaded with added sugars, unhealthy fats, and harmful additives. Food products are designed to stimulate you’re sense of “bliss point” and cause you to want more. Food and drink manufacturers employ illegal methods to promote their products. They target children by using manipulative images and parents who are stressed out by offering “easy” solutions for feeding and pleasing their families.
- Companies that produce food or beverages earnings increase their influence on the political scene. This is especially true for areas that need to be regulated in low- or middle-income countries. They leverage their economic power (employment or tax revenue) to encourage lobbying from corporations that undermine government policies.
What can be done?
The Lancet series outlines four avenues through which the government, businesses, and the public can lessen the damage caused by large corporations and limit the influence of commercial organizations.
1. Rethink the economic and political system.
The developing countries, which include Bhutan, Ecuador, and Brazil, as well as advanced countries, such as New Zealand and Norway, are beginning to clear the way to new frameworks that put the well-being of people first. Within the UK, Scotland and Wales have made significant progress.
These frameworks evaluate the effects of commercial activity on the environment and health and encourage methods that promote health. Strategies to achieve this include enforcing laws such as the tax on sweetened beverages that contain sugar, ensuring that commercial enterprises have to cover their share of the tax, and must be accountable for the total cost of health. These social and environmental damages result from their products’ consumption, production, and disposal.
2. Create an “international convention” on health-related commercial elements.
In the real world, this would be a matter of replicating and expanding the global regulatory frameworks for health that work. The WHO’s (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control has demonstrated that public health policies can be shielded from commercial interest. Since its introduction at the time of its 2003 adoption, the convention has significantly impacted changes in public policy regarding tobacco control throughout the globe. It’s created a framework that allows nations to design and implement measures based on evidence to cut down on tobacco use and the adverse effects that it causes. Examples include smoking-free laws, graphic health warnings on products containing tobacco, prohibition of tobacco advertisements and sponsorship, and increases in tobacco taxes.
The Lancet suggests that, with the help of and with the support of WHO and its members and its member states, the creation of an “international convention” on commercial elements that affect health should be drafted. It is suggested that health officials and politicians emulate the tobacco control convention creating a legal obligation for countries to adhere to an agreed-upon set of guidelines or principles. The framework must be broad enough to encompass all commercial impacts on health. This would include fossil fuels, mining, gambling, auto industries, pharmaceuticals, and social media (beyond the more well-known sector of food and alcohol).
3. Complete food-environment policies.
One kind of policy that has proven effective in helping enhance health and protect it can be public procurement, where governments buy items and services. The government can use buying power to affect the food industry by encouraging the creation and distribution of healthy foods and restricting the supply of unhealthy food items.
In 2008, Mayor Michael Bloomberg from New York City ordered city agencies to adhere to the requirements for public food procurement for more than 260 million annual food items and snacks. The guidelines apply to food products from over 3,300 programs at 12 agencies, including hospitals, schools, and shelters. The requirements for nutrition include dairy and meat, cereals, fruit, and vegetables. They also establish the nutrient requirements for meals.
The Brazilian School Food Programme is another example of a nationwide public procurement policy with directly benefited health benefits. The program offers healthy food to millions of pupils in schools throughout Brazil.
Buying 70% of their food supply is required from family-owned farmers. The program has enhanced students’ overall health and well-being and ensured ethical and sustainable food production methods. It also has successfully managed the selling and marketing of food inside and outside of school premises.
All over the world could benefit from this model, including South Africa, where despite promises from the industry not to provide school-based food items, harmful drinks and foods are readily available and available at schools.
4. Social mobilisation.
Civil society organizations, citizens, activists, academics, and public health professionals can demand their right to health by requesting government intervention in commercial health determinants. This can be accomplished by using a variety of methods. They may make a statement to support evidence-based health practices or expose and challenge the detrimental consequences of commercial determinants of health and equity and demand that commercial entities and governments are accountable.
This article is part of a partnership between The Conversation Africa and PRICELESS SA, a unit for research-to-policy located in the School of Public Health at the University of the Witwatersrand. Researchers from the SAMRC/Wits Centre for Health Policy and Decision Science have contributed to the Lancet Series on the commercial aspects of health.
