“Politics at federal, state and local level can do a lot to enable people to eat healthier,” says public health researcher Peter von Philipsborn. Four strategies are particularly important and promising.
Better daycare and school meals
Eating habits are formed in childhood. “This means that politicians have a clear mandate to set the right course,” says Philipsborn. Children should experience that healthy and sustainable nutrition can also be attractive and tasty. The German Society for Nutrition worked out years ago how this can be achieved in schools and day-care centers. However, their quality standards are still not implemented at most educational institutions. Only a few federal states have made the standards mandatory for some of the grades. And even there, according to Philipsborn, there is a lack of financing and control of implementation. It is urgently necessary for the recommendations to be heeded across the board.
Health-promoting pricing
Since the war in Ukraine has also been driving up food prices, there have been calls for a complete abolition of VAT on healthy food. The main focus should be on relieving the financial burden on citizens. In fact, such tax cuts could also make sense in terms of health. According to Philipsborn, they are an incentive for consumers to choose healthy products and also make this choice easier for people with lower incomes. From a health point of view, however, it is incomprehensible that foods such as meat and sugar continue to benefit from the lower returnable tax rate of seven percent. Scientific associations have long been calling for price increases for products that are not very healthy. At the same time, these could finance the tax cuts for healthy eating.
Ad Restrictions to Protect Children
“Children between the ages of three and ten in Germany see an average of 15 commercials for unhealthy food a day,” explains Philipsborn. That means a huge impact. In addition, the imbalance is large. In Germany alone, around 900 million euros are spent on confectionery advertising alone. In contrast, only around 25 million euros were earmarked in the 2021 federal budget for measures to promote healthy eating and consumer information. Since voluntary commitments by the food industry to protect the younger generation have proven to be completely ineffective, politicians are called upon, argues Philipsborn. In fact, the traffic light coalition plans to ban advertising that aims to make foods with a high sugar, fat and salt content palatable to children. However, no details are known yet.
Incentives for new recipes
Finally, Philipsborn calls for incentives for the food industry to change their recipes. Food labeling such as the Nutri-Score, which is currently only being introduced on a voluntary basis, could motivate manufacturers to take such steps. Taxes could also be effective – such as a soft drink tax, the amount of which is graduated according to the sugar content.