The public-health community views the mandatory labelling and taxation of fat as promising tools to control the growth of food-related chronic disease. This paper is the first to propose an ex ante evaluation of these two policy options in an oligopolistic setting with differentiated products and heterogeneous demand. Using household scanner data on fromages blancs and dessert yogurts, we separately identify consumer preferences for fat and front-of-pack fat labels by exploiting an exogenous difference in legal labelling requirements between these two product categories. Demand estimates are then combined with a supply model to evaluate both policies. In the absence of any producer price response, making fat labels mandatory reduces the fat supplied to regular consumers in this market by 38%; an ad-valorem tax of 10% (5%) on the producer price of full-fat (half-skimmed) products has a similar impact. Allowing producer price reactions, however, yields much smaller effects: a 9% drop for the fat tax, and a fall of only 1:5% for mandatory labels. Producers thus neutralise up to 96% of the impact of mandatory labelling on demand, via large price cuts on products with large ex ante margins. This illustrates how market forces are largely able to defeat the intended effect of market-based public-health interventions.
The public-health community views the mandatory labelling and taxation of fat as promising tools to control the growth of food-related chronic disease. This paper is the first to propose an ex ante evaluation of these two policy options in an oligopolistic setting with differentiated products and heterogeneous demand. Using household scanner data on fromages blancs and dessert yogurts, we separately identify consumer preferences for fat and front-of-pack fat labels by exploiting an exogenous difference in legal labelling requirements between these two product categories. Demand estimates are then combined with a supply model to evaluate both policies. In the absence of any producer price response, making fat labels mandatory reduces the fat supplied to regular consumers in this market by 38%; an ad-valorem tax of 10% (5%) on the producer price of full-fat (half-skimmed) products has a similar impact. Allowing producer price reactions, however, yields much smaller effects: a 9% drop for the fat tax, and a fall of only 1:5% for mandatory labels. Producers thus neutralise up to 96% of the impact of mandatory labelling on demand, via large price cuts on products with large ex ante margins. This illustrates how market forces are largely able to defeat the intended effect of market-based public-health interventions.
The public-health community views the mandatory labelling and taxation of fat as promising tools to control the growth of food-related chronic disease. This paper is the first to propose an ex ante evaluation of these two policy options in an oligopolistic setting with differentiated products and heterogeneous demand. Using household scanner data on fromages blancs and dessert yogurts, we separately identify consumer preferences for fat and front-of-pack fat labels by exploiting an exogenous difference in legal labelling requirements between these two product categories. Demand estimates are then combined with a supply model to evaluate both policies. In the absence of any producer price response, making fat labels mandatory reduces the fat supplied to regular consumers in this market by 38%; an ad-valorem tax of 10% (5%) on the producer price of full-fat (half-skimmed) products has a similar impact. Allowing producer price reactions, however, yields much smaller effects: a 9% drop for the fat tax, and a fall of only 1:5% for mandatory labels. Producers thus neutralise up to 96% of the impact of mandatory labelling on demand, via large price cuts on products with large ex ante margins. This illustrates how market forces are largely able to defeat the intended effect of market-based public-health interventions.
The health crisis caused by COVID‐19 reached Europe by February 2020, with remarkable differences in its potency by nation (ECDC, 2020). This effectively caused variation in mitigation efforts in European countries, in opposition to the World Health Organization's recommendations to a common response. Highly contrasting policies were implemented by neighboring countries, from "stay‐at‐home" requirements to very light restrictions. Furthermore, the application time of these measures was extremely variable across Europe. This study investigated whether the stringency of containment policies and the implementation speed of 24 European countries may have affected the number of COVID‐19‐associated casualties. The overall stringency (i.e., the containment measures in place) fluctuated over time and by country, which prohibited a clear association with the mortality rate. Importantly, the implementation speed of these containment measures in response to the coronavirus had a strong effect on the successful mitigation of fatalities. The results also suggest that early adopters of strategies are likely to return to normal life more rapidly. Based on these data, the implementation of containment measures at the very early stages of a future health crisis is highly recommended to reduce the negative impact on society and improve the speed of recovery.
The United States and its allies were almost completely unprepared for the enormous occupation responsibilities they faced in the Far East beginning in 1945. The author reviews Chinese, American, and British occupation decisions in immediate postwar China, Korea, and Southeast Asia and the role of the forces of recently defeated Japan. Allied occupiers came into the area for the nonpolitical task of disarming and removing the Japanese, but they quickly found themselves in the middle of insurgencies or civil wars, because the basic political future of these countries remained undecided. By 1948 all the states of the former Japanese empire were involved in conflicts. The ultimate fate of the occupied nations seemed to depend more on internal forces than on the techniques or plans of the occupiers. Consequently, the lessons of this period for the recent Iraq occupation are ambiguous at best, and they suggest that nation-building with guns will have no more certain outcome.
On 26 June 2015, the Chilean Official Journal published Decree No. 13 of 16 April 2015 (hereinafter Decree 13/2015) amending Decree 977/1996 Reglamento sanitario de los alimentos (hereinafter, the Food Health Regulation, as it is widely referred to in English, although the correct translation would be Food Sanitary Regulation). In particular, Decree 13/2015 requires warning messages in the shape of a black octagon in the form of a STOP sign to be placed on the front-of-pack with the text 'High in…' when food products exceed certain levels of energy, sodium, sugars or saturated fats. Although novel in the food sector, Chile's measure is part of a trend of public policies aimed at tackling lifestyle risks by conveying certain information to the public. While warning messages that reduce the visual appeal of the packaging of products are ubiquitous in the tobacco sector, these types of messages are now also gradually being extended to the alcohol and food sectors.
AbstractPolicy makers cannot consider all evidence relevant to policy. They use two shortcuts—emotions and beliefs to understand problems and "rational" ways of establishing the best evidence on solutions—to act quickly in complex, multilevel policy‐making environments. Many studies only address one part of this problem. Improving the supply of evidence helps reduce scientific and policy maker uncertainty. However, policy makers also combine their beliefs with limited evidence to reduce ambiguity by choosing one of several possible ways to understand and solve a problem. We use this insight to consider solutions designed to "close the evidence–policy gap."
Received: 2021-05-17 | Accepted: 2021-07-08 | Available online: 2021-12-31https://doi.org/10.15414/afz.2021.24.04.315-321Milk fat is a source of not only nutritionally valuable but also biologically active ingredients that are involved in various regulatory processes, thus participating in a functioning organism. These compounds have been studied and various beneficial effects on the health and development of the organism have been described. Ingredients such as fatty acids (monounsaturated fatty acids, polyunsaturated fatty acids and conjugated linoleic acid) and phospholipids (glycerophospholipids and sphingolipids) may have a beneficial effect on human health or can prevent various diseases. Some candidate genes that are significantly involved in milk fat metabolisms, such as diacylglycerol O-acyltransferase 1 and stearoyl-CoA desaturase 1, thus contribute to the composition and concentration of the individual components of milk fat. This review deals with the composition of the collected bioactive components of milk fat and their impact on health and their potential to produce functional foods.Keywords: milk fat, phospholipids, fatty acids, bioactive compoundsReferencesArgov-Argaman, N., Mida, K., Cohen, B. C., Visker, M. and Hettinga, K. (2013). Milk fat content and DGAT1 genotype determine lipid composition of the milk fat globule membrane. PLoS One, 8(7), e68707. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0068707Arranz, E. and Corredig, M. (2017). Invited review: Milk phospholipid vesicles, their colloidal properties, and potential as delivery vehicles for bioactive molecules. Journal of dairy science, 100(6), 4213–4222. https://doi.org/10.3168/jds.2016-12236Bauman, D. E., Mather, I. H., Wall, R. J. and Lock, A. L. (2006). Major advances associated with the biosynthesis of milk. 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Mercury Fate and Transport in the Global Atmosphere highlights major issues related to the interactions of mercury with terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, and evaluates the relative contribution of anthropogenic and natural sources to the global atmospheric mercury budget. This book provides a state-of-the-art overview on different aspects related to mercury emissions from natural and anthropogenic sources, the evaluation of mercury concentrations and fluxes in different regions of the world, and global atmospheric mercury models currently used to assess spatial distributions of mercury compounds in ambient air and source-receptor relationships. The preparation of this book has been made possible thanks to the contributions of all members of the United Nations Environment Programme Global Partnership for Mercury Air Transport and Fate Research (UNEP-MFTP), and of more than 70 scientists from leading universities and research institutions recognized as worldwide experts on different aspects related to emissions, monitoring and modeling mercury in the atmosphere and other environmental compartments. Mercury Fate and Transport in the Global Atmosphere is intended to provide a scientific support to nations and the UNEP Governing Council that have been asked to shape the most efficient and economic concerted actions to reduce the impact of mercury contamination on human health and the environment.
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Historiography on the volunteers has maintained that most were young, aggressive, 'war enthused' men from the Wilhelmine educated elite, who quickly became disillusioned or broke down when faced with war's ghastly realities. By analysing a sample of 2584 volunteers from 36 units, examining unpublished letters and diaries, and studying the volunteers' battle performance, this article questions these beliefs. It argues that in fact volunteers came from a wide urban background, that most were motivated to enlist by defensive patriotism, not aggressive 'war enthusiasm', and that military ill-preparedness, not unrealistic combat expectations, accounts for the volunteers' high psychiatric casualty rates.
In: Gee , J , Button , M & Brooks , G 2010 , The financial cost of UK public sector fraud : a less painful way to reduce public expenditure . MacIntyre Hudson , Milton Keynes .
In the run up to the general election (6 May 2010), with all political parties struggling to devise ways of reducing public expenditure, there has been little comment about one way in which major savings can be achieved - and painlessly. There is now the potential for real savings, rather than just rhetorical ones, from reducing losses to fraud. This Report outlines:- -What the real losses are -How much they can be reduced by -How quickly -Where the savings can be made -What needs to be done.
AbstractWeight abnormalities (underweight, overweight, and obesity) can cause life-threatening ailments. This study investigates disparities in the prevalence of underweight, overweight, and obesity between northern and southern Nigeria and their associated factors. Using the 2018 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS), the study analysed a sample of 12,333 women with complete records of body mass index. The study found that southern women had lower odds of being underweight than women in the north, but the reverse was the case for overweight and obesity. The prevalence of underweight was 11.6%, and it varies from 6.9% in the southern state of Enugu to 31.6% in the northern state of Jigawa. The national prevalence of overweight was 17.9%, ranging from 6.7% in Jigawa State of the northern region to 39.9% in Lagos State of the south. Similarly, the prevalence of obesity in the north was 6.1% compared to 14.4% in the south, with Anambra State of the southern region recording the highest figure of 35.5% compared to 2.1% in the Yobe State of the northern region. In all, the rate of abnormal weight was significantly higher in the south than in the north. However, the type of weight abnormality varies between the two regions. Religion, education, use of contraceptives, and wealth were associated with the three forms of abnormal weights. However, while religion was significantly associated with obesity in the north, the association was not significant in the south. This study found that wealth and education have dissimilar influences on overnutrition. While the odds of being overweight and obese increase with wealth, being educated up to a secondary level significantly reduces the odds in Nigeria and across the two regions.
The case of a Chilean frozen vegetable company shows how the operations of agroindustrial complexes in Chile have transformed the social structures in which they are incorporated. National and global agro-food market operations significantly increase economic risk in local rural areas. The company studied finds itself at risk because of problems of access to international markets and has developed strategies to reduce both fixed and operating production costs in order to prevail in that risky situation. In practice, these policies translate into a progressive rationalization of production processes that constitutes an externalization of risk from the company to its immediate surroundings. The company thus transfers many of its risks and costs to producers and workers, carrying out an aggressive pricing policy with regard to the former and cutting back labor requirements for the latter, with the result of increasing social inequity. In sum, the case illustrates the deep consequences of capitalist operation in rural areas.
When the economic downturn hit the US several years ago, Utah's Department of Workforce Services (DWS) was hit with a double whammy-workloads that tripled and budgets that were cut. DWS is responsible for providing services to displaced workers and those seeking access to federal assistance programs such as food stamps and Medicaid. As Utah's jobless rate grew, the department's workload exploded. And with less tax revenue coming in, the legislature was forced to cut spending. Around the department, employees called it "the perfect storm." In late 2009 they learned about Theory of Constraints (TOC) front a local consultant and quickly sensed the potential. As DWS began its TOC program, it faced pressure from the legislature to improve service levels, while cutting its annual operating budget by more than $9 million (out of about $80 million) in less than 18 months. Adapted from the source document.
We investigate whether media literacy and media use can moderate the association between U.S. media enjoyment and unhealthy eating among remotely acculturating "Americanized" adolescents and their mothers in Jamaica (n = 164 individuals/82 dyads; Madolescent.age = 12.83, SD = 0.48, 48% female; Mmother_age = 39.25, SD = 5.71). Socioeconomically diverse participants completed questionnaires reporting their degree of enjoyment of U.S. media (i.e., remote acculturation), media literacy (i.e., critical thinking about food media/advertising), and adherence to national dietary guidelines to reduce sugar/fat. Multilevel modeling showed that enjoying U.S. media and consuming high levels of U.S. TV plus Jamaican TV are associated with lower efforts to reduce sugar and fat. However, high media literacy, whether one's own or a close family member's, weakens or nullifies that association.
