Truth about action on obesity

“You can’t just pull 1 or 2 policy levers, you need to pull 50.” This was the conclusion of Richard Dobbs, Senior Partner at McKinsey and author of a major study on obesity in 2014, commenting recently on its $2 trillion global economic impact.

He made 3 other observations, which also chimed with my own thinking.

• ‘Politicians are distracted by single policies’, such as soda taxes, because it is easier to target a single sector than a coalition of resistance.

• ‘Industry lacks the level playing field that regulation can create’, such as common international nutrient profile standards for claims.

• “Everyone from retailers and manufacturers to the drug companies … were all united in wanting to fix the problem. “

It’s time for policy makers to focus on ingestion not gesture.