Healthy Eating

Overview

Obesity is one of the most serious health threats facing our nation.  According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than two-thirds of American adults and one-third of American youth are now obese or overweight.  These high rates of obesity and overweight adults and children are largely responsible for the United States’ depreciating health outcomes and rapidly rising healthcare costs.  Lack of access to healthy food and nutritional information are just two factors contributing to the escalating obesity epidemic. 

Healthy eating policies that promote access to and consumption of healthy foods in community and school settings are avenues of possible reform. For example, a growing number of states and cities have enacted laws requiring chain restaurants to provide nutritional information on their menus, and a new federal law is in the works.  Some localities have created zoning ordinances to regulate the location and density of fast food restaurants in their communities.  Other localities have implemented programs that provide zoning variances and financial incentives to property owners, developers, and grocers to locate grocery stores in underserved areas known as “food deserts.”  School districts have also begun to implement nutritional standards for their school meal programs.  In addition, they are considering ways to minimize the influence of marketing of unhealthy foods to children in school settings through wellness policies, vending agreements and measures to limit the sale of competitive foods during the school day.

This section contains background information about leading policy interventions and legislation in the field of obesity prevention.

Select Resources

• Law and the Prevention & Control of Obesity:  A Selected Bibliography, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Public Health Law Program (2009).  A useful bibliography of articles on obesity and law published in public health, medical and law journals from Jan. 1, 2000 through the summer of 2009.
• National Policy & Legal Analysis Network to Prevent Childhood Obesity (NPLAN) website.  NPLAN provides leaders in the childhood obesity prevention field with focused legal research, model policies, fact sheets, toolkits, training and technical assistance to explain legal issues related to public health.
• Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Leadership for Healthy Communities Toolkit (2009).
• Trust for America’s Health, F as in Fat:  How Obesity Policies Are Failing in America (2009).
• Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Center to Prevent Childhood Obesity, Resources and Tools.

Select Research

• Journal of Health Affairs ,Vol 29, No. 3 (Mar. 2010) (entire issue devoted to childhood obesity). 
• Jennifer Pomeranz et al., Innovative Legal Approaches to Address Obesity, 87 Milbank Q. 185 (2009) (outlining various ways to utilize the law as a tool to combat obesity).
• Seth E. Mermin & Samantha K. Graff, A Legal Primer for the Obesity Epidemic, 99 Am J. Pub. Health 1799 (2009) (explaining legal doctrines most relevant to policies aimed at preventing obesity, with the goal of helping policymakers avoid potential constitutional problems in developing obesity prevention policy).
• Institute of Medicine, Report Brief:  Local Government Actions to Prevent Childhood Obesity (2009).
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , Recommended Community Strategies and Measurements to Prevent Obesity in the United States, 58 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) 1 (2009).
• Berkeley Media Studies Group, Accelerating Policy on Nutrition:  Lessons from Tobacco, Alcohol, Firearms, and Traffic Safety (March 2005).