Fiscal measures can be part of the health ‘nudge’, says Innocent
Beverage and ready meal manufacture Innocent recently published an Orange Paper in which it set out recommendations for encouraging healthier eating. The paper was prepared following a round table discussion with nine experts and commentators on food and nutrition policy.
The top recommendation in the report is to make healthier choices more affordable.
“We’d like to see an end to higher prices for healthier15 food and drinks and call upon the Government to explore ways of making healthier food and drinks more affordable for
consumers. As one specific example of how this could be achieved: Innocent believes that VAT should be reduced on fruit juice and smoothies.”
A body of research has shown that food products that have a relatively low nutritional load against high energy and saturated fat levels tend to be cheaper than the most nutritious foods. This presents a barrier to healthy eating for consumers with the lowest food budgets.
Fiscal measures have tended to focus on so-called ‘fat taxes’, which envisage raising taxes on less nutritious foods such as chocolate, snacks and sugary drinks. Such measures were recently introduced in Denmark, but whenever they are proposed in the UK they tend to elicit a string reaction.
Innocent nutritionist Vanessa Hattersley told FoodNavigator.com that in the current financial situation reducing the cost of healthier foods is “incredibly unlikely but the sentiment is that the government should at least be considering this”.
She said: “It’s a massive undertaking to mess with market dynamics, but it is time to start thinking about it and doing some modelling.”
Even if the financial situation were more positive in the UK at present the research is not yet in place, Hattersley said, but doing the modelling now means the groundwork will be in place for a time in the future when the country is more financially stable.
But it is important that the government provides a central point for coordination. Putting the research needs out to tender will enable universities to get involved.
UK health secretary Andrew Lansley is taking a ‘nudge’ approach to health – that is, nudging people to make more healthy lifestyle decisions. This approach, based on economics and psychology, is also known as behavioural economics.
Hattersley said it is possible to argue that meddling with the market is a way of nudging – although the approach is “not very Conservative”, as the lead party in the coalition government generally prefers to leave such matters to market forces rather than intervening.
“The nation’s dietary preferences will only improve when a healthy diet becomes
more attractive, more affordable, and more available, than an unhealthy one.
It’s no good just telling people what to do,” Dr Ian Campbell, GP and obesity specialist, is quoted as saying in the Orange Paper.
“The Government needs to take the lead in making it easier for people to live healthier lives”
