Change in policies

To control the development of obesity among the population, it requires multi sectoral and multidisciplinary approaches, which can start with the government changing tax policies for food products. Most consumers in Brazil opt for processed food products not only because they are addictive and convenient but also because they are much cheaper and more accessible than fresh food. Therefore, tax should be imposed on unhealthy food and drink, not only sweetened and carbonated soft drinks but also food products that have the amount of sodium, fat and sugar exceeding World Health Organization’s recommended daily limit. There are examples of the positive impact of increasing tax on a decrease in consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) in the United States and Mexico, thereby decreasing the obesity rate among children and adolescents. According to an estimation by Brownell and colleagues, increasing tax by 1 cent per ounce of SSBs, consumption can decrease 10 percent. A change in tax policy will not only discourage people from consuming unhealthy food but will also help generate revenue and decrease health costs from treating chronic diseases. In 2013, by imposing a tax of 1 peso on each liter of SSBs, the sales volume decreased by 5 percent in the next year(1).

Education to children

Imposing tax and reducing consumption of processed products can only resolve the obesity epidemic on surface level by discouraging people from purchasing these products. Discouraging people from consuming and craving these products is more pivotal. Therefore, all resolutions can work effectively only when more emphasis and attention is put on education about the origin of food nutrition, diet, physical activities and the harm of processed food.

School Gardens

In order to motivate children to eat more vegetables and less unhealthy food, besides limiting the sale of unhealthy food products on campus, several schools in Brazil have been adapting the school gardens model. School gardens are actually an effective way for students to do more physical activities and learn more about the origin of the food that they eat. By planting their own vegetables and watching them grow every day, students can be educated about the hard work behind farming and producing food as well as become more excited to eat the vegetables that they grow on their own.

In Brazil, the Interministerielle Portaria (Inter Ministerial Ordinance) No. 1.010 / 2006, which issued guidelines for the promotion of healthy eating in schools, made school gardens become one of their priorities. Since 2005, the gardens have been funded by the Fundo Nacional de Desenvolvimento da Educação (FNDE) of the Ministério da Educação (MEC) in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Although school gardens are not a new thing for Brazil, it is still challenging to scale the project to all schools in Brazil. One of the main reasons is that urban schools do not have enough space to develop a garden and they also don’t have enough personnel to take care of the gardens, so teachers and staff are usually involved in the maintenance of school gardens. However, as the plants grow bigger and the garden needs additional care, volunteers are needed to sustain these kinds of educational gardens for junior students.

Brazilian Feeding Program

Programa Nacional de Alimentação Escolar (PNAE) is a Brazilian public policy initiative that does not only provide junior students with meals that meet their nutritional needs but also aims at promoting healthy eating habits among children as well as educating them about nutrition and health. The program currently has more than 50 million participants, which include students of educational institutions across the federal, state and municipal level as well as areas occupied by indigenous community and Quilombo remnants. Recently, the program has started banning the purchase of sodas and other sugary beverages in school yards and requires that 30 percent of the ingredients for the food has to be sourced from family farmers(02).

Although students are fed with nutritious food at school through this program, they are still prone to be obese and overweight if they are fed with unhealthy packaged food at home. Therefore, it is crucial to ensure that children are fed with healthy food not only on campus but also at home. In order to achieve that, the program should also involve parents by educating them about the nutritional needs of their children as well as suggesting a menu that can be cooked at home. Besides education, the program can also collaborate with parents to monitor their eating habits and ensure they are provided with the right amount of food.

Change from processed food producers

Food labels of packaged food play an important role in guiding consumers’ purchase decisions. Transparent information about ingredients, portion size and nutrition facts is the approach that most food and beverage companies in the market today have been adopting. However, according to Nestlé executives, when food is cheaper, consumers can afford more food, so they tend to overbuy and overeat these products (3). Therefore, besides designing acceptable portion size for an average consumer, it is also crucial to educate consumers about the appropriate portion size for each person so as not to exceed the recommended daily limit of fat and sugar. This can be done by an extra label including information about the number of calories as well as the amount of fat and sugar that different weight and height groups can consume. Some consumers do not pay attention to their Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE), therefore providing them with an average estimation for their weight right on the spot can be a solution to help them pay more attention to the amount of energy they are taking in.

Besides informing consumers of the right portion size for them, another change that can be made to the food label is suggesting physical activities that can be done to burn off the calories of that product. By doing this, consumers will be more mindful about the food that they are about to consume. This idea is called Physical Activity Calorie Equivalent (PACE) labels/ labeling and has received positive response from the Royal Society of Public Health in the UK, but it still needs to be tested in reality to be validated (04) .

Conclusion

Processed food solves Brazil’s food security on a surface level: provide jobs for people in rural areas, provide food that is cheap for people without access to food. Looking from a Public Health and Nutrition perspective, Nestlé is unethical because it provides the poor with high-caloric, sugary, rich in fat content and unhealthy food products, causing an increase in obesity rate in Brazil and will cause more chronic diseases among the Brazilian population. However, if we look at Nestlé and its door-to-door delivering service from an economic point of view, it is indeed beneficial for low-income residents there because this job brings them income and food to feed their children. In the short term, this may be the solution to solve the surface problem of poor people, but in the long term, this does more harm than good to Brazil’s economy and welfare if more people have chronic diseases as the result of poor diet and obesity. To solve the problem radically, it must be done from education and change in policies.

References

1. Satija A, Yu E, Willett WC, Hu FB. Understanding nutritional epidemiology and its role in policy. Adv Nutr. 2015;6(1):5-18. Published 2015 Jan 15. doi:10.3945/an.114.007492
2. Jaime, P. C., da Silva, A. C., Gentil, P. C., Claro, R. M., & Monteiro, C. A. (2013).
3. The Lancet Diabetes Endocrinology (2020). Tackling obesity in 2020-with a great resolution comes shared responsibility. The lancet. Diabetes & endocrinology, 8(2), 89. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2213-8587(20)30001-2
4. Ibid