The impact of interventions to promote healthier ready-to-eat meals (to eat in, to take away or to be delivered) sold by specific food outlets open to the general public: a systematic review.
Obesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity 2016 ; 18: 227-246.
Hillier-Brown FC, Summerbell CD, Moore HJ, Routen A, Lake AA, Adams J, White M, Araújo-Soares V, Abraham C, Adamson AJ, Brown TJ
DOI : 10.1111/obr.12479
PubMed ID : 27899007
PMCID : PMC5244662
URL : https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/obr.12479
Abstract
Ready-to-eat meals sold by food outlets that are accessible to the general public are an important target for public health intervention. We conducted a systematic review to assess the impact of such interventions.
Studies of any design and duration that included any consumer-level or food-outlet-level before-and-after data were included.
Thirty studies describing 34 interventions were categorized by type and coded against the Nuffield intervention ladder: restrict choice = trans fat law (n = 1), changing pre-packed children's meal content (n = 1) and food outlet award schemes (n = 2); guide choice = price increases for unhealthier choices (n = 1), incentive (contingent reward) (n = 1) and price decreases for healthier choices (n = 2); enable choice = signposting (highlighting healthier/unhealthier options) (n = 10) and telemarketing (offering support for the provision of healthier options to businesses via telephone) (n = 2); and provide information = calorie labelling law (n = 12), voluntary nutrient labelling (n = 1) and personalized receipts (n = 1). Most interventions were aimed at adults in US fast food chains and assessed customer-level outcomes. More 'intrusive' interventions that restricted or guided choice generally showed a positive impact on food-outlet-level and customer-level outcomes. However, interventions that simply provided information or enabled choice had a negligible impact.
Interventions to promote healthier ready-to-eat meals sold by food outlets should restrict choice or guide choice through incentives/disincentives. Public health policies and practice that simply involve providing information are unlikely to be effective.