If you look at the balance sheet of the outgoing federal government, you will not discover one thing: the big hit in terms of nutrition promotion. The government launched a strategy to reduce sugar, fat and salt in finished products, but its contents are not mandatory for the industry. After a long period of hesitation, she introduced the Nutri-Score, but this nutritional labeling is also only a voluntary instrument. As always, there was some explanation.
How much more would be possible, however, and how far Germany lags behind the possibilities, is now shown by public health scientists in a new analysis. A team led by Peter von Philipsborn and Karin Geffert from Munich’s LMU looked through hundreds of documents for the study, which had not yet been reviewed in a specialist journal, and asked 55 external experts for their assessment: How good is Germany’s nutrition policy?
Its benchmark is the internationally used Food Environment Policy Index. It lists a total of 47 measures to promote nutrition; they range from the provision of research funds to quality standards for company canteens. The analysis showed that not a single one of these possibilities was comprehensively taken in Germany. The experts rated eight of the interventions as being moderately well implemented. It is predominantly those who offer little concrete help in people’s everyday lives, such as the collection of health data or the development of nutritional guidelines.
Better school lunch is a top priority
All other measures were introduced at a low level, if at all. Germany is particularly reluctant to intervene when it comes to interventions affecting industrial interests: this includes interventions in advertising and marketing, higher taxation of unhealthy food, and requirements for retailers, including, for example, the ban on unhealthy junk goods at the checkouts.
“There is a lot of catching up to do in many areas,” says Peter von Philipsborn, pointing out that the index has already been applied to around 40 countries. Compared to them, Germany is more in the lower midfield.
At the same time, the authors created a kind of ranking of specific measures: Which ones have the greatest effect, are also easy to implement – and should therefore be tackled as a matter of priority? At the top of the list is a better school and day-care center. There have been quality standards for the catering of the youngest generation for years; However, they are more or less mandatory in only a handful of federal states. They should now finally become binding everywhere, demand the authors.
They also consider tax regulations to be particularly recommendable. In Australia, for example, fruit and vegetables are exempt from VAT, something similar is to be hoped for in Germany. In return, VAT breaks should be suspended for unhealthy products.
Children watch 15 unhealthy food commercials a day
In addition, the study authors propose a manufacturer levy on sweet drinks based on the British model, which is based on the sugar content. “There is hardly any other food that is more closely related to obesity and non-communicable diseases than is the case with sweet drinks,” says Diana Rubin, senior nutritionist at several Vivantes clinics in Berlin. The mixture of the sugars contained and the high number of calories, which however does not lead to satiety, had a particularly unfavorable effect on health.
The researchers also plead for food advertising aimed at children to be regulated by law. “Children in Germany see an average of 15 commercials for unhealthy food every day, ten of them on television and five on the Internet. Even voluntary commitments by the food and advertising industry have not changed anything,” emphasizes Barbara Bitzer, spokeswoman for the German Alliance for Noncommunicable Diseases.
The co-author of the current analysis, Antje Hebestreit from the Leibniz Institute for Prevention Research and Epidemiology in Bremen, refers in particular to social media. The majority of the advertising aimed at children there advertises snacks and sweet drinks – “precisely those foods that are largely responsible for a child’s obesity”. But it is particularly difficult for children to lose excess pounds again. “You take the burden with you into adulthood,” says the nutritionist.
Implementing these plans should not be easy, the authors admit. However, they would probably not fail because of the population. According to various surveys, between 63 and 94 percent of Germans have spoken out in favor of these measures.
Peter von Philipsborn therefore appeals to the future federal government to take the issue more seriously. “The SPD, Greens and FDP have promised in their election programs to do more to promote a balanced diet, especially among children. Now is the time to keep this promise.”