When Industrial Policies Conflict With Population Health: Potential Impact of Removing Food Subsidies on Obesity Rates

Abstract

Objectives: To model the potential impact on obesity of removing butter, cheese, and sugar subsidies in the Canary Islands. Methods: A simulation model was applied based on a local data set of subsidies and retail prices (2007-2016), data on own-price elasticity estimates, and representative nutritional and health surveys. We estimated marginal obesity prevalence and population attributable fraction to assess the potential impact of the butter, cheese, and sugar subsidies intervention. Results: The intervention was predicted to avoid 10 363 obese adults over the study period, because of the reduction of the obesity prevalence by-0.7 percentage points. Overall, the predicted effect was largest in elderly and male groups, although females with a low socioeconomic status experienced the greatest decrease in the prevalence. The population attributable fraction predicted that 4.0% of population with obesity were attributable to the existence of these subsidies. Conclusions: This analysis provides policy makers with the predicted impact on obesity of the butter, cheese, and sugar subsidies disposal, enabling them to incorporate this health impact into decision making across policy areas in the economic and health field. This study aims to model the potential impact on obesity of removing industrial subsidies for butter, cheese and sugar in the Canary Islands.

Phenome-wide investigation of the causal associations of cheese intake with obesity and obesity traits: a two-sample mendelian randomization analyses

“…To date, obesity prevention and treatment strategies have not achieved long-term success at both the individual and population levels, but lifestyle and behavioral interventions such as diet nutritional pattern modi cation may have some effect on the prevention and treatment of obesity [4,5]. Cheese as an important part of the daily diet of most population in the world, several previous studies have suggested that cheese intake may play a role in reducing the incidence of obesity, but relevant conclusions were inconsistent [6][7][8][9][10]. In addition, although cheese intake may be associated with reduced incidence of obesity in previous studies using traditional epidemiological methods, the inability to fully adjust for numerous confounders was an important limitation.…”