IOM Issues Weight of the Nation™ Strategy Report
The Institute of Medicine (IOM) has published a May 8, 2012, consensus report assessing more than 800 obesity prevention strategies and identifying those “with the greatest potential to accelerate success.” Released at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Weight of the Nation™ conference and funded by the National Academies of Sciences, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, the report evidently focuses on five goals for preventing obesity: (i) “integrating physical activity into people’s daily lives”; (ii) “making healthy food and beverage options available everywhere”; (iii) “transforming marketing and messages about nutrition and activity”; (iv) “making schools a gateway to healthy weights”; and (v) “galvanizing employers and health care professionals to support healthy lifestyles.” Included in these goals are specific recommendations that address, among other things, sugar-sweetened beverage consumption, the availability of lower-calorie children’s meals in restaurants, nutritional labeling, and food and beverage marketing to children.
In particular, IOM’s Committee on Accelerating Progress in Obesity Prevention urges both the public and private sectors to incentivize nutritious diets and physical activity while discouraging the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages and other foods not in alignment with the federal government’s dietary guidelines. The report thus recommends “substantial and specific excise taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages…, with the revenues being dedicated to obesity prevention programs,” as well as requiring restaurants to ensure “that at least half of all children’s meals are consistent with the food and calories guidelines of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans for moderately active 4- to 8-year-olds and are competitively priced.” It also calls on the Food and Drug Administration and U.S Department of Agriculture to develop “consistent nutrition labeling for the front of packages [FOPs], retail store shelves, and menus and menu boards that encourages healthier food choices” and to implement a mandatory FOP system that would help consumers “compare products on a standard nutritional profile.”
In addition, the report authors have asked the food, beverage and media
industries to consider adopting “common standards for marketing foods and
beverages to children and adolescents.” These standards would require that
all products advertised to this age group conform to the Dietary Guidelines for
Americans, with the Federal Trade Commission, Children’s Food and Beverage
Advertising Initiative and National Restaurant Association Initiative ensuring
compliance among member companies. “If such marketing standards have not
been adopted within two years by a substantial majority of food, beverage,
restaurant, and media companies that market foods and beverages to children
and adolescents, policy makers at the local, state and federal levels should
consider setting mandatory nutritional standards for marketing to this age
group to ensure that such standards are implemented,” concludes the report.
“As the trends show, people have a very tough time achieving healthy weights when inactive lifestyles are the norm and inexpensive, high calorie foods and drinks are readily available 24 hours a day,” said IOM Committee Chair Dan Glickman. “Individuals and groups can’t solve this complex problem alone, and that’s why we recommend changes that can work together at the societal level and reinforce one another’s impact to speed our progress.” See National Academies Press Release, May 8, 2012.
