New report claims food policy is an ‘utter failure’

Hal Swerissen

What would you think if car tyre manufacturers developed tyres that were much cheaper to manufacture, much easier to fit to the wheel and gave you a more comfortable ride, but resulted in 30 percent more accidents and additional16,000 deaths a year?

Consumer advocates and road safety researchers would undoubtably argue for regulation to improve the safety of the tyres. But others would discount the evidence. The tyre industry might muddy the waters by blaming poor driving for accidents and deaths.  Libertarians would oppose regulation as the ‘nanny state’ interfering with consumer choice. Some research bodies would argue that regulation would cost jobs and reduce economic efficiency.

In the absence of regulatory reform, many individual users would buy the cheaper, more convenient, more comfortable tyres and accidents and deaths would continue. Some would be poorly informed about the risks. Others would be financially constrained and take the risk anyway. 

But in the end, it seems likely that government would act to require manufacturers to improve the safety of their tyres. You can imagine the impact of televised personal tragedies of families devastated by car crashes caused by faulty tyres on Ministers who failed to act.

And yet that has not happened to combat the epidemic of obesity and weight gain. A third of the Australian population is obese, another third is overweight and 16,400 deaths were attributable to these causes in 2018. Most of this is caused by a clearly unsafe food environment, that is nevertheless convenient, cheaper to manufacture and preferred by consumers. 

In the United Kingdom, the House of Lords has delivered a report that describes government initiatives to address this crisis as an ‘utter failure’. The same is true for Australia.

The important point the report makes is that we need to avoid seeing diet related harm as a problem of individual choice and instead as a matter for industrial regulation and policy incentives. The food industry is dominated by large multinationals that have commercial incentives to produce unhealthy food. These companies know that we prefer salty, energy dense food that will inevitably lead to us being overweight and obese. Not surprisingly, that is what they deliver by the truck load. Regulations are weak and confused and the incentives are in the wrong direction for both manufacturers and consumers.

The UK report argues that public policy has been too focused on problem of obesity and how to tackle it through voluntary codes and an emphasis on consumer information. Focusing on consumer information, marketing and choice is a mistake that has not worked, and will not work. No amount of media exhortation, food labelling or clever apps on your phone will provide sufficient market incentives to significantly alter the unhealthy food supply.

Instead the report argues for a comprehensive food strategy. One that puts the emphasis on healthy production, distribution and consumption of food and its health outcomes. The report points out that comprehensive, mandatory responses are required to reshape incentives for the food industry to change their behaviour. 

Regulations and taxation policies shape the behaviour of producers and distributors. They alter the market incentives for both producers and consumers. It is clear for example, that something as straightforward as a sugar tax has radically altered the behaviour of manufacturers to reduce the sugar content in drinks. Competitors are more likely to produce cheaper less sugary drinks and consumers are more likely to buy them. Self interest is a powerful motivator for industry.

Of course, the big difference between convenient, cheap and comfortable, but unsafe tyres and unsafe food is that a car crash and dismembered bodies is harder to ignore than obese and overweight people with type 2 diabetes who slowly die from kidney failure. Currently, we are witnessing a slow motion, car crash of chronic disease and death caused by our poorly managed food industry. A comprehensive strategy is overdue in Australia. Whether governments will take on board the House of Lords recommendations remains to be seen.