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A description of interventions promoting healthier ready-to-eat meals (to eat in, to take away, or to be delivered) sold by specific food outlets in England: a systematic mapping and evidence synthesis
- Source :
- BMC Public Health, BMC Public Health, Vol 17, Iss 1, Pp 1-17 (2017), BMC public health, 2017, Vol.17 [Peer Reviewed Journal]
- Publisher :
- Springer Nature
-
Abstract
- Background Ready-to-eat meals (to eat in, to take away or to be delivered) sold by food outlets are often more energy dense and nutrient poor compared with meals prepared at home, making them a reasonable target for public health intervention. The aim of the research presented in this paper was to systematically identify and describe interventions to promote healthier ready-to-eat meals (to eat in, to take away, or to be delivered) sold by specific food outlets in England. Methods A systematic search and sift of the literature, followed by evidence mapping of relevant interventions, was conducted. Food outlets were included if they were located in England, were openly accessible to the public and, as their main business, sold ready-to-eat meals. Academic databases and grey literature were searched. Also, local authorities in England, topic experts, and key health professionals and workers were contacted. Two tiers of evidence synthesis took place: type, content and delivery of each intervention were summarised (Tier 1) and for those interventions that had been evaluated, a narrative synthesis was conducted (Tier 2). Results A total of 75 interventions were identified, the most popular being awards. Businesses were more likely to engage with cost neutral interventions which offered imperceptible changes to price, palatability and portion size. Few interventions involved working upstream with suppliers of food, the generation of customer demand, the exploration of competition effects, and/or reducing portion sizes. Evaluations of interventions were generally limited in scope and of low methodological quality, and many were simple assessments of acceptability. Conclusions Many interventions promoting healthier ready-to-eat meals (to eat in, to take away, or to be delivered) sold by specific food outlets in England are taking place; award-type interventions are the most common. Proprietors of food outlets in England that, as their main business, sell ready-to-eat meals, can be engaged in implementing interventions to promote healthier ready-to-eat-food. These proprietors are generally positive about such interventions, particularly when they are cost neutral and use a health by stealth approach. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12889-016-3980-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
- Subjects :
- medicine.medical_specialty
Restaurants
Psychological intervention
030209 endocrinology & metabolism
Takeaways
Intervention
Health Promotion
03 medical and health sciences
0302 clinical medicine
Tier 2 network
Medicine
Food Industry
Humans
030212 general & internal medicine
Obesity
Marketing
Ready-to-eat-meals
Evaluation
health care economics and organizations
Nutrition
Upstream (petroleum industry)
Public health
business.industry
lcsh:Public aspects of medicine
digestive, oral, and skin physiology
Commerce
Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
lcsh:RA1-1270
Grey literature
3. Good health
Diet
Intervention (law)
Health promotion
England
Local government
Food environments
Fast Foods
business
Research Article
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 14712458
- Volume :
- 17
- Issue :
- 1
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- BMC Public Health
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....fa5b6a4b9b9573489015c410a870d1aa
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-016-3980-2