What’s now increasingly being understood is that the messaging on packing itself influences what we buy and eat. Small changes to labelling can make a surprising difference to what we buy – but equipping ourselves with better knowledge about nutrition can also help us make better choices.
In fact, many leading experts say the food environment – such as the way food is produced, marketed and sold – itself is “obesogenic” (creating the conditions for weight gain) and this influences consumers to make unhealthy choices. To combat the growing levels of obesity, we need to change what we eat – and emerging research shows that behavioral interventions as well as policy change could make a meaningful difference.
The food environment
By 2050, more than half of adults in the world are predicted to be obese if current trends continue according to a 2025 Lancet paper. If action is taken now, this rapid rise can be prevented but “without immediate and effective intervention, overweight and obesity will continue to increase globally”, researchers wrote in the Lancet paper.
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