7.A. Workshop: How could sustainable public food policies add to curbing childhood obesity in EU? Best-ReMaP case
Authors:   Organised by: National Institute of Public Health (Slovenia) on behalf of EU JA Best-ReMaP consortium,   Chair persons: Mojca Gabrijelčič Blenkus (Slovenia)
Published: October 2023

Childhood obesity is a global public health problem in Europe and worldwide, influenced mainly by the nutrition and physical in/activity behaviours which are impacted by the structural food environment in which the child and his/her caregivers make lifestyle decisions. Individual eating behaviour is a complex societal practice, influenced by structural factors of the obesogenic environment with several health risks. Overweight and its associated chronic diseases (NCDs) reduce life expectancy in OECD countries by 2.7 years on average and 8.4% of the health budget of OECD countries will be spent to treat the consequences of overweight over the next thirty years. Including direct and indirect effects, overweight and obesity reduces GDP by 3.3% on average in both OECD countries and EU28 Member States. Joint Action ‘Best-ReMaP - Healthy Food for a Healthy Future’ (www.bestremap.eu)of 24 participating EU Member states (MSs) aims to contribute to positive changes in food environment in EU, by contributing to the improvement the quality of the food offer in EU, while placing public health at the centre of food systems-related policies and practice. With an ultimate goal to support EU and national efforts to reduce the burden of NCDs, Best-ReMaP addresses the selected food policies from three interrelated angles, which could influence children's food choices: (1) food reformulation (how the composition of the processed foods can be better monitored and producers more motivated to reformulate for healthier food options at the European and national levels); (2) reduction of food marketing (how the traditional and digital food marketing and advertising activities could be better monitored and regulated), and (3) public food procurements - PFP (how public institutions could procure foods that's healthier, of higher quality and more sustainable). Different actions have been considered, allowing for the possible sustainable implementation of the three up-mentioned policies, such as: three policy frameworks, food system indicator for the EU Semester, EU level branded foods database, different networks (experts, high level), equity aspects (existing knowledge and research gaps).

The workshop is aiming to:

• Showcase the value of monitoring of concrete food policies, to enable the regular reporting on the progress and implementation obstacles and argued engagement with stakeholders.

• Increase participants’ understanding and awareness of the challenges of the concrete sustainable implementation of actions of the Best-ReMaP food policies.

The workshop will offer an opportunity to:

• Present the sustainable outputs of the Best-ReMaP implementation approaches, outlining the attempts in harmonizing monitoring actions for food reformulation and marketing, and piloting the PFP tools.

• Inform participants about the benefits of the sustainable EU frameworks for three policy actions, and other sustainability mechanisms, developed by the Best-ReMaP consortium.

Key messages

• New evidence on the sustainable implementation of the policy actions in Best-ReMaP food policies (reformulation, marketing, public food procurement) are presented.

• Three frameworks for action for EU and MSs, and food system indicator for the European Semester are discussed.