Addressing obesity and diet-related disease through the advancement of local fast food policies

In the midst of a diet-related disease epidemic, recent studies by the Institutes of Medicine and National Bureau of Economic Research suggest that curbing fast food promotions to children could have profound implications for children's health. Yet, according to the Yale Rudd Center, the fast food industry has actually expanded its marketing directed at children, and using new technologies, this predatory marketing has become more ubiquitous than ever.

Innovative policies addressing the food industry's use of predatory marketing to kids have the potential to transform the food environment and to reverse this diet-related disease epidemic. Corporate Accountability International and Nicholas Freudenberg, Distinguished Professor of Public Health at Hunter College, have developed local policy options for challenging the fast food industry to change its practices and reduce its impact on children's health. Using this report and the experience of the San Francisco Healthy Meals Incentive Ordinance as background, this presentation explores the importance and effectiveness of policies that address the fast food industry, the challenges of organizing for the adoption of such policies, and the ways that health educators, organizers, and policymakers can safeguard against corporate interference in public health and food policymaking at the local level. By describing and dissecting local fast food policy options and the means for achieving these policies, the presentation will expand health professionals' understanding of not only policy options that address children's health and diet-related disease, but the process of adopting policies that will most effectively shape our food system and reverse this epidemic.