Transnational/Global

Resources

• Front-of-package labeling

  Fact sheet describing how front-of-package (FOP) labels can help consumers make informed, healthier choices and encourage industry to improve the nutritional profile of their products and portfolios. Learn about the evidence for different FOP labels, what types of labels are in use around the world today, and key elements to consider when developing and implementing an effective FOP labelling policy.

• Taxes on unhealthy foods and beverages

  Global maps showing countries and smaller jurisdictions with taxes on sugary or sweetened beverages and/or unhealthy foods that were implemented with a goal of curbing consumption of sugar, salt, saturated or trans fats, and excessive calories and improving public health. Included are brief descriptions of each tax structure and dates of passage or implementation.

• Comments for WHO consultation on the draft fiscal policy guidelines

  The Global Food Research Program submission to World Health Organization's public consultation on draft guidelines on fiscal policies to promote healthy diets

• Taxing sugary drinks: A fiscal policy to improve public health

  Learn about the connections between excess sugar consumption and prevalence of obesity and other noncommunicable diseases, as well as real-world evidence for how sugary drink taxes can reduce sugar intake, improve health, and increase government revenue while decreasing health care costs and the personal and shared burdens of nutrition-related diseases.

• Front-of-package labeling fact sheet

  Fact sheet describing how front-of-package (FOP) labels can help consumers make informed, healthier choices and encourage industry to improve the nutritional profile of their products and portfolios. Learn about the evidence for different FOP labels, what types of labels are in use around the world today, and key elements to consider when developing and implementing an effective FOP labelling policy.

• Comments for WHO consultation on draft marketing policy guidelines

  The Global Food Research Program's submission to the consultation on the World Health Organization's draft guidelines on policies to protect children from the harmful impact of food marketing

• Front-of-package labeling

  Series of maps showing interpretive labels used on food and beverage packages around around the world. These maps feature national-level, mandatory front-of-package labeling policies as well as government-endorsed voluntary labels. This resource includes a map highlighting countries with front-of-package warning label policies.

• Restrictions on marketing food to children

  Global map showing countries with national-level, mandatory policies aimed at protecting children from harmful marketing for unhealthy foods or beverages by limiting children’s exposure to marketing and/or by limiting the persuasive power of food marketing via restrictions on the use of certain creative marketing techniques. This resource includes a chart comparing policy scope in each country and more details on limits to television advertising.

• Food and beverage marketing

  Fact sheet describing the prevalence and persuasive nature of junk food marketing and its impact on children and adolescents. Learn how unhealthy food marketing contributes to global childhood obesity and about recommendations for regulations to limit its harms.
  
  Updated May 2022

• Stages of the Nutrition Transition

  Diagram outlining the five phases of the Nutrition Transition and their associated dietary and activity patterns.

  © Barry M. Popkin, 2021

• Sweetened beverage tax evaluations: Stakeholders, potential outcomes, and responses

  Diagram depicting the relationships between stakeholders’ interests (governments, health advocates, consumers, and industry), their potential responses to sweetened beverage taxes, and measurable outcomes for evaluations.

• School food environment

  Global map showing countries with national-level policies to improve nutrition in public schools by limiting service or sales of foods that do not build health. Key policy interventions mapped include restrictions on nutrients, ingredients, or categories of concern in school meals, competitive food sales, and marketing in schools.

• Ultra-processed foods

  

  Fact sheet describing ultra-processed foods and drinks and the threat they pose to public health worldwide as they make up increasingly greater portions of the global diet. Learn how to identify ultra-processed products; review the evidence for their association with a multitude of risk factors, diseases, and mortality; and explore policy options to reduce consumption.
  
  Updated November 2023 (May 2021 version available in Spanish and Portuguese)

• Industry self-regulation

  Fact sheet describing food and beverage industry voluntary self-regulation in three main areas of public health concern: 1) Child-directed food marketing; 2) front-of-package labelling; and 3) reducing unhealthy nutrients in the food supply. While self-regulation continues to be the most common approach globally for addressing industry’s role in the ongoing obesity crisis, this fact sheet details a large body of independent evidence demonstrating that these measures have been ineffective and insufficient.
  
  Updated July 2020

• School food environments

  Fact sheet describing the impact of unhealthy school food environments on childhood obesity and wellness. Learn about policies that can improve the school food environment, including restricting access to unhealthy foods, protecting kids from food industry marketing, and emphasizing the nutritional standards schoolchildren need to grow, develop, and succeed at school and beyond the school grounds.
  
  Updated September 2018