Understanding the dynamics driving obesity in socioeconomically deprived urban neighbourhoods: an expert-based systems map.

Background: Over the past decades, the prevalence of obesity among adults has rapidly increased, particularly in socioeconomically deprived urban neighbourhoods. To better understand the complex mechanisms behind this trend, we created a system map exposing the underlying system driving obesity prevalence in socioeconomically deprived urban neighbourhoods over the last three decades in the Netherlands.

Methods: We conducted Group Model Building (GMB) sessions with a group of thirteen interdisciplinary experts to develop a Causal Loop Diagram (CLD) of the obesogenic system.

[How do we make society less obesogenic? Lessons from the political and complexity sciences].

The adoption of prevention policies that address our obesogenic society remains deficient. We investigated how to overcome policy inertia, using qualitative literature review and theories and concepts from the political and complexity sciences. Our findings indicate that multiple self-reinforcing processes buttress the assumption that obesity is an individual problem, strengthening the biomedical and commercial weight-loss sectors' claim to ownership over solutions.

Why we struggle to make progress in obesity prevention and how we might overcome policy inertia: Lessons from the complexity and political sciences.

Despite evidence for the effectiveness of policies that target obesogenic environments, their adoption remains deficient. Using methods and concepts from complexity and political science (Stock-and-Flow analysis and Punctuated Equilibrium Theory) and a qualitative literature review, we developed system maps to identify feedback loops that hinder policymaking on mitigating obesogenic environments and feedback loops that could trigger and sustain policy change. We found numerous self-reinforcing feedback loops that buttress the assumption that obesity is an individual problem, strengthening the biomedical and commercial weight-loss sectors' claim to "ownership" over solutions.

Giving fruits and vegetables a tax break: lessons from a Dutch attempt.

Objective: Food taxation can improve diets by making unhealthy foods more expensive and by making healthy foods cheaper. In the Netherlands, a political window of opportunity arose in December 2021 to reduce the value-added tax (VAT) on fruits and vegetables to zero percent. The policy is now facing institutional friction along several fronts, however, delaying and potentially averting its implementation.

[How the infant food industry processes scientific research].

For the minority of health claims on infant formula marketing materials that cited scientific studies, the vast majority had a high risk of bias and was sponsored by formula manufacturers. This is consistent with prior research revealing a 'cycle of bias' in nutrition research. The food industry biases what is being investigated in the first place.

Is the commercial determinants conversation confined to the health sciences? Potentially, and that's a problem.

The commercial determinants of health (CDoH) are attracting increased interest and are of great importance when discussing how trade affects health. Through a citation analysis of recent foundational CDoH documents (a Lancet paper series and an Oxford University textbook), we find that fully 71% of all citations reference the health sciences. The health sciences may be well suited to documenting the specific pathways of how commercial (by)products and practices harm human health.

Lifestyle versus social determinants of health in the Dutch parliament: An automated analysis of debate transcripts.

Although public health scholars increasingly recognize the importance of the social determinants of health (SDOH), health policy outputs tend to emphasize downstream lifestyle factors instead. We use an automated corpus research approach to analyse fourteen years of health policy debate in the Dutch House of Representatives' Health Committee, testing three potential causes of the lack of attention for SDOH: political ideology, by which members of parliament (MPs) from some political orientations may prioritize lifestyle factors over SDOH; lifestyle drift, by which early attention for SDOH during problem analysis is replaced by a lifestyle focus in the development of solutions as the challenges in addressing SDOH become clear; and focusing events, by which political or societal chance events, known to the public and political elites simultaneously, bolster the lifestyle perspective on health. Our analysis shows that overall, the committee spent most of its time discussing neither SDOH nor lifestyle: healthcare financing and service delivery dominated instead.

[Health-related food taxes and the new Dutch government: from ambitions to real measures].

The new Dutch government has the ambition to implement several health-related food taxes. We provide an evidence-based agenda for improving population health with these policy ambitions. First, we argue that a sugary drinks tax should be at least 10, preferably 20%, comparable to the UK sugar industry levy.

Six lessons from introducing sweetened beverage taxes in Berkeley, Cook County, and Philadelphia: A case study comparison in agenda setting and decision making.

Sweetened beverage (SB) taxes have recently been introduced to prevent obesity by several governments, but limited information on related policy adoption processes hampers further diffusion. We investigated the agenda-setting and decision-making phases of SB tax reforms in Berkeley and Philadelphia (where it was successfully adopted), and Cook County (where it was repealed). A web-based survey, semi structured stakeholder interviews, and a local media coverage analysis were used to collect information.

Sugar-sweetened beverage taxation in 2017: a commentary on the reasons behind their quick spread in the EU compared with the USA.

In the final issue of Public Health Nutrition in 2017, Kathryn Backholer and colleagues provide a clear overview of the spread of taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) in 2017, and a useful overview of opposing arguments and their counterpoints. Backholer et al. argue that much of the action was concentrated in the USA, but in the present commentary we point out that the recent sweep of SSB tax policy announcements in the EU seems much more promising.

How and why do countries differ in their governance and financing-related administrative expenditure in health care? An analysis of OECD countries by health care system typology.

Introduction: Administration is vital for health care. Its importance may increase as health care systems become more complex, but academic attention has remained minimal. We investigated trends in administrative expenditure across OECD countries, cross-country spending differences, spending differences between health care system typologies, and differences in the scale and scope of administrative functions across typologies.

The taxation of unhealthy energy-dense foods (EDFs) and sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs): An overview of patterns observed in the policy content and policy context of 13 case studies.

Taxation of energy-dense foods (EDFs) and sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) is increasingly of interest as a novel public health and fiscal policy instrument. However academic interest in policy determinants has remained limited. We address this paucity by comparing the policy content and policy context of EDF/SSB taxes witnessed in 13 case studies, of which we assume the tax is sufficiently high to induce behavioural change.