Penn experts propose a tobacco playbook for food policy
Drawing on public policies that have been successful with tobacco control, Penn’s Center for Food and Nutrition Policy outlines a stronger framework for regulating ultra-processed foods.
2 min. read
Diet-related diseases such as type 2 diabetes, obesity, and hypertension, particularly those affecting children, remain stubbornly high. Can public policies like those that have been successful with tobacco control help shape a more effective public health impact on these diseases?
A group of food policy researchers with decades of experience believes so. Experts from the new Center for Food and Nutrition Policy at the Perelman School of Medicine are bringing their knowledge to bear on key food- and health-related regulatory issues.
“It’s an approach we call ‘strategic science’ because we’re creating research questions around important topics that policy change agents—regulators, legislators, advocates—have told us they need answers to,” says Christina Roberto, the Mitchell J. Blutt and Margo Krody Blutt Presidential Professor of Health Policy and director of the Center.
In a viewpoint, published in JAMA Health Forum, Roberto and Alyssa J. Moran, deputy director at the Center, point to a proven framework—modeled on tobacco control—that can be adapted to food policy on the heels of the “Make Our Children Healthy Again” report published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
“For years, tobacco companies owned major food manufacturers and used similar tactics to resist regulation, from voluntary industry rule programs to deceptive media campaigns,” Roberto says. “Effective tobacco policies like taxes, warning labels, and marketing bans dramatically reduced smoking rates. Many of these same strategies can be applied to rein in the food industry and protect children from diet-related disease.”
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