Obesity prevention and control: the urgent need for effective public policies.

Obesity, now considered a pandemic, has been a priority on the international and national public policy agenda for several decades. Although specific progress has been made in certain contexts, no country has successfully controlled the epidemic 1. The main barriers to its control include the private commercial lobby, governments’ inability or lack of political will to implement effective policies, absent (or insufficient) pressure by civil society for policy action, and limited scientific assessment of the existing control measures. Effective obesity prevention involves inter-sector measures and strengthening food systems that simultaneously promote prosperity, equity, environmental sustainability, and health, regulation of advertising for ultra-processed foods and advertising targeted to children, improved food labeling, fiscal measures to discourage the purchase of ultra-processed foods and encourage that of natural, whole, or minimally processed products, promotion of healthy eating environments, promotion of maternal breastfeeding and healthy complementary infant feeding, and the development of actions in food and nutritional education. Latin America has witnessed innovative experiences such as taxing soft drinks in Mexico, new food labeling in Chile, and publication of meal-based food guides in Brazil and Uruguay that classify foods on the basis of their degree of processing. Recording and analyzing obesity control initiatives are essential for consolidating effective measures in different settings. This highlights the timely publication of the article Obesity and Public Policies: The Brazilian Government’s Definitions and Strategies in this issue of Cadernos de Saúde Pública. According to the article and references, in the last two decades Brazil has made progress by designing strategies for obesity prevention and control both within the health sector and with other sectors and by investing in inter-sector governance mechanisms like the Inter-Ministerial Chamber for Food and Nutritional Security and the National Council on Food and Nutritional Security. In recent years, Brazil has also formally expressed its intention to tackle the obesity problem, signing international agreements and setting targets in national plans, like those written into the National Plan for Food and Nutritional Security (PLANSAN) 2016-2019. These include curbing the growth of obesity in the adult population, reducing by at least 30% the regular consumption of soft drinks and artificial juices (from 20.8% to 14% of the Obesity prevention and control: the urgent need for effective public policies