Food Policy Interventions

Abstract

Obesity is mainly associated with unhealthy eating and low levels of physical activity but also, increasingly, with social and economic development and policies in the areas of agriculture, transportation, urban planning, the environment, food processing, distribution, marketing, and education. Obesity-related health-care spending is estimated to cost up to $190 billion per year or more than 20% of the total US health-care cost. If nothing is done to stop the epidemic now, it will rise by an additional $50 billion or more by 2030 (Carroll 2013). Obesity’s rising costs are not what the United States’ economy needs as the government attempts to put a lid on exploding health-care expenditures. Any national strategy should have clear guidance on prevention and treatment of established overweight and obesity problems.