The physical activity and nutrition-related corporate social responsibility initiatives of food and beverage companies in Canada and implications for public health

'The company is using the credibility of our profession': exploring experiences and perspectives of registered dietitians from Canada about their interactions with commercial actors using semi-structured interviews

OBJECTIVE

To gain insight into the experiences and perspectives of registered dietitians (RD) in Canada regarding their interactions with commercial actors and actions undertaken to manage these interactions.

DESIGN

Qualitative study using semi-structured interviews combined with a document analysis.

SETTING

Quebec, Canada.

PARTICIPANTS

RD aged ≥ 18 years (n 18).

RESULTS

All participants reported interacting with commercial actors during their careers, such as receiving continuing education provided or sponsored by food companies. RD in Quebec perceive these interactions as either trivial or acceptable, depending on the commercial actor or interaction type. Participants discussed how certain interactions could represent a threat to the credibility and public trust in dietitians, among other risks. They also discussed the benefits of these interactions, such as the possibility for professionals to improve the food supply and public health by sharing their knowledge and expertise. Participants reported ten mechanisms used to manage interactions with commercial actors, such as following a code of ethics (individual level) and policies such as partnerships policy (institutional level). Finally, RD also stressed the need for training and more explicit and specific tools for managing interactions with commercial actors.

CONCLUSIONS

RD in Quebec, Canada, may engage with commercial actors in their profession and hold nuanced perspectives on this matter. While some measures are in place to regulate these interactions, they are neither standardised nor evaluated for their effectiveness. To maintain the public's trust in RD, promoting awareness and developing training on this issue is essential.

The effectiveness, cost-effectiveness and policy processes of regulatory, voluntary and partnership policies to improve food environments: an evidence synthesis

Background

Dietary factors are among the largest and costliest drivers of chronic diseases in England. As a response, the government implements a range of population interventions to promote healthy diets by targeting food environments.

Objectives

This study aimed to conduct a systematic review of the effectiveness, cost-effectiveness and policy process of real-world evaluations of national and state policies on improving food environments, with a focus on whether they were regulatory, voluntary or partnership approaches.

Data sources

Fourteen relevant English-language databases were searched in November 2020 for studies published between 2010 and 2020.

Methods

Six separate evidence reviews were conducted to assess the evidence of effectiveness, cost-effectiveness and policy processes of policies to improve food environments.

Results

A total of 483 primary research evaluations and 14 evidence syntheses were included. The study reveals considerable geographic, methodological and other imbalances across the literature, with, for example, 81% of publications focusing only on 12 countries. The systematic reviews also reveal the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of reviewed regulatory approaches designed to improve health, consumer behaviour and food environment outcomes while public-private partnerships and voluntary approaches to improve diets via reformulation, advertising and promotion restrictions or other changes to the environment were limited in their effectiveness and cost-effectiveness. The study also revealed key enabling and impeding factors across regulatory, voluntary and public-private partnership approaches.

Conclusion

From the available evidence reviewed, this study finds that regulatory approaches appear most effective at improving the food environment, and voluntary agreements and partnerships have limited effectiveness. These findings should be carefully considered in future public health policy development, as should the findings of geographic imbalance in the evidence and inadequate representation of equity dimensions across the policy evaluations. We find that food policies are at times driven by factors other than the evidence and shaped by compromise and pragmatism. Food policy should be first and foremost designed and driven by the evidence of greatest effectiveness to improve food environments for healthier diets.

Limitations

This was a complex evidence synthesis due to its scope and some policy evaluations may have been missed as the literature searches did not include specific policy names. The literature was limited to studies published in English from 2010 to 2020, potentially missing studies of interest.

Future work

Priorities include the need for guidance for appraising risk of bias and quality of non-clinical studies, for reporting policy characteristics in evaluations, for supporting evaluations of real-world policies equitably across geographic regions, for capturing equity dimensions in policy evaluations, and for guideline development for quality and risk of bias of policy evaluations.

Study registration

This study is registered as PROSPERO CRD42020170963.

Funding

This award project was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Public Health Research programme (NIHR award ref: NIHR128607) and is published in full in Public Health Research; Vol. 12, No. 8. See the NIHR Funding and Awards website for further award information.

Health policy implications of corporate social responsibility provisions in international investment agreements

Objective

To analyse and classify inclusions of corporate social responsibility in international investment agreements, especially inclusions with reference to public health.

Method

We extracted the text of international investment agreements containing corporate social responsibility inclusions from the Electronic Database of Investment Treaties. We conducted a documentary analysis of the corporate social responsibility inclusions, and we developed a typology categorizing inclusions based on level of detail and reference to international commitments.

Findings

Of the 3816 agreements signed as of October 2023, 127 agreements contain corporate social responsibility inclusions. Since the first inclusion of corporate social responsibility in 2008, the percentage of agreements containing such inclusion signed each year has steadily increased from 4.6% (4/86) in 2008 to 42.8% (21/49) in 2018 and 33.3% (3/9) in 2023. Using the typology we developed, we categorized the level of detail as follows: nine were minimal, 27 were low, 35 were low-medium, 107 were medium, 11 were medium-high and seven were high. Health is mentioned in 36 of these inclusions.

Conclusion

This analysis indicates that international investment agreements increasingly incorporate a high level of detail on expectations regarding investors' corporate social responsibility. Such provisions offer a potential tool to increase government guidance and accountability of global corporations, including with respect to governments' public health objectives.

Interactions Between Nutrition Professionals and Industry: A Scoping Review

BACKGROUND

In recent years, interactions between nutrition professionals (NPs) and the food industry, such as sponsorship arrangements, have raised concerns, particularly as these may negatively impact the trustworthiness and credibility of the nutrition profession. This study aimed to map the literature and identify knowledge gaps regarding interactions between NPs and industry. We sought to examine the nature of such interactions and NPs perspectives about these, as well as the risks and solutions.

METHODS

We conducted a scoping review according to a pre-registered protocol, searching eight electronic databases and grey literature sources in March 2021 to identify documents for inclusion. Two independent reviewers screened citations for inclusion and conducted data extraction. Quantitative and qualitative syntheses were conducted.

RESULTS

We identified 115 documents for analysis, published between 1980 to 2021, with a majority from the United States (n=59, 51%). Only 32% (n=37) were empirical studies. The food industry was the most frequent industry type discussed (n=91, 79%). We identified 32 types of interactions between NPs and industry, such as continuing education provided by industry and sponsorship of professional bodies and health and nutrition organizations. The financial survival of nutrition organizations and continuing education access for NPs were the most frequently cited advantages of industry-NPs interactions. On the other hand, undermining public trust, NPs credibility and public health nutrition recommendations were pointed out as risks of these interactions. Following a code of ethics, policies, or guidelines was the most frequently proposed solution for managing these interactions.

CONCLUSION

Despite the increasing attention given to this issue, few empirical papers have been published to date. There is a need for more research to better and systematically document industry interactions with NPs and the impacts associated with these, as well as more research on effective management strategies. Registry Name and Number: Interactions between nutrition professionals and industry actors: A scoping review protocol. doi:10.17605/OSF.IO/Q6PUA.

A Scoping Review of Observational Studies on Food and Beverage Advertising on Social Media: A Public Health Perspective

Popular social media platforms have been actively used by ultra-processed food companies to promote their products. Being exposed to this type of advertising increases the consumption of unhealthy foods and the risk of developing obesity and other non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Thus, monitoring commercial content on social media is a core public health practice. We aimed to characterize the methods used for monitoring food advertising on social media and summarize the investigated advertising strategies via a scoping review of observational studies. This study is reported according to the MOOSE Statement, and its protocol was registered with the PROSPERO International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (registration nº. CRD42020187740). Out of the 6093 citations retrieved, 26 met our eligibility criteria. The studies were published from 2014 to 2021, mostly after 2018. They focused on Australia, Facebook, strategies aimed at children and adolescents, and advertising practices of ultra-processed food companies. We grouped strategies in eight classes: post features (n = 18); connectivity and engagement (n = 18); economic advantages, gifts, or competitions (n = 14); claims (n = 14); promotional characters (n = 12); brand in evidence (n = 8); corporate social responsibility or philanthropy (n = 7); and COVID-19 (n = 3). We found similarities in the investigation of strategies regardless of the type of social media. Our findings can contribute to the designing of tools for monitoring studies and regulatory mechanisms to restrict the exposure of food advertising.

Benchmarking unhealthy food marketing to children and adolescents in Canada: a scoping review

INTRODUCTION

Unhealthy food and beverage marketing in various media and settings contributes to children's poor dietary intake. In 2019, the Canadian federal government recommended the introduction of new restrictions on food marketing to children. This scoping review aimed to provide an up-to-date assessment of the frequency of food marketing to children and youth in Canada as well as children's exposure to this marketing in various media and settings in order to determine where gaps exist in the research.

METHODS

For this scoping review, detailed search strategies were used to identify relevant peer-reviewed and grey literature published between October 2016 and November 2021. Two reviewers screened all results.

RESULTS

A total of 32 relevant and unique articles were identified; 28 were peer reviewed and 4 were from the grey literature. The majority of the studies (n = 26) examined the frequency of food marketing while 6 examined actual exposure to food marketing. Most research focussed on children from Ontario and Quebec and television and digital media. There was little research exploring food marketing to children by age, geographical location, sex/gender, race/ethnicity and/or socioeconomic status.

CONCLUSION

Our synthesis suggests that unhealthy food marketing to children and adolescents is extensive and that current self-regulatory policies are insufficient at reducing the presence of such marketing. Research assessing the frequency of food marketing and preschooler, child and adolescent exposure to this marketing is needed across a variety of media and settings to inform future government policies.

The Role of Social Responsibility and Ethics in Employees' Wellbeing

Social responsibility (SR) is a concept or practice by which organizations take into account the interest of society by taking responsibility for the impact of their activities on all stakeholders. The SR of organizations implies ethical behavior concerning all stakeholders and a company's commitment to the sustainable economic development of society. Organizational ethics is a set of written and unwritten codes of principles and values that govern decisions and actions within an organization. Ethics has a rather internal perspective, while social responsibility has a rather external perspective. This study examines the impact of social responsibility and organizational ethics on employees' wellbeing. To perform the empirical analysis, we conducted a survey among 423 employees from Romanian organizations. Using the structural equation modeling, we analyzed the relationships between social responsibility, organizational ethics, and employees' wellbeing, emphasizing the positive impact of ethical and responsible behavior of the organization on the employees' wellbeing. The organization's employees play a dual role: firstly, they are all internal stakeholders, and secondly, they are constituents of an external stakeholder essential for the organization-the community. The results show a significant positive influence of social responsibility and organizational ethics on employees' wellbeing as a result of a responsible and ethical behavior in relation to the organizational stakeholders.

Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting for Stakeholders’ Health and Wellbeing in the Food and Beverage Industry: A Case Study of a Multinational Company

The concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) used to be seen as a social obligation of businesses to make decisions and take responsible action in accordance with the goals and values of the society. The concept is today understood as the continuing commitment by businesses to behave ethically and contribute to economic development while improving the quality of life of the workforce and their families as well as the local community and society at large. This study aimed to apply Chowdhury and co-authors’ framework to the Unilever Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Content Index 2020 to explore the feasibility of the framework as well as identify potential challenges related to its use in the field of public health. Findings show that the framework is suitable for analysing CSR reporting on activities aimed to promote internal and external stakeholders’ health and wellbeing from a public health perspective. A greater number of GRI disclosures reported by Unilever related to external stakeholders’ health and wellbeing than to activities impacting internal stakeholders. Further research should aim at testing the framework in other types of business organizations across other types of industries.

Reformulation of Traditional Fermented Tea Sausage Utilizing Novel (Digital) Methods of Analysis

The main objective of this paper was to investigate the effect of fat reduction on different quality traits of tea sausage. This study also aimed to deploy the following digital methods of analysis: three-dimensional (3D) laser imaging, computer vision system and oral processing. Three batches of tea sausage with different amounts of pork back fat were manufactured: control (25%), medium fat (17.5%) and low fat (10%). Samples for the analyses were taken on the production day and after 7, 14, 21, 28 and 35 days of ripening. The fat level significantly influenced shrinkage, texture, pH, a_w, moisture and ash contents, peroxide value, acid number, number of chewing strokes, consumption time, eating rate and fat intake rate. Oxidative stability, colour and microbiological parameters were not affected by fat reduction. The results of the sensory analysis showed that the fat level can be reduced to 17.5% without negatively affecting the quality and sensory properties of the product. The ripening time of the fat-reduced tea sausage should be reduced to 28 days. A strong correlation between shrinkage and weight loss suggests the possibility of using 3D laser imaging in predicting weight loss and moisture content of dry sausages.

What do we know about corporate social responsibility and stakeholders physical activity? A Public Health Perspective

In the past decade and in the context of sustainable development, business organizations have been expected to partner with governments and others to address societal problems, including those pertinent to population health. Accordingly, through their corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies and policies, companies should collaborate in health promotion efforts to modify the effects of the health determinants (including those concerning behavior change) affecting internal and external stakeholders. Although CSR strategies and policies are linked to stakeholder health and wellbeing (e.g. employee satisfaction), little is known of how these strategies affect physical activity. Thus, this perspective paper aims to contribute to the discussion of the topic by investigating what scientific evidence exists regarding the relationship between CSR and physical activity. So far there are indications that some business are implementing CSR activities targeting internal (e.g. employees) and external (e.g. consumers) stakeholders, especially in developed countries. Furthermore, among external stakeholders, CSR activities with a physical activity component targeted children, youth, the disabled, the under-privileged, and the elderly. However, there is still very little empirical evidence available using appropriate quantitative and qualitative designs. Public health and health science researchers in general should strive to advance our understanding of how CSR affects population health behavior, paving the way to develop frameworks for resilient, ethical, and sustainable health promotion.

Noncommunicable Diseases Prevention Policies and Their Implementation in Africa: A Systematic Review

Objectives: To synthesize the existing evidence on NCD policy equity, policy practices, and policy implementation gaps to prevent NCDs in African countries.

Methods: Following the PRISMA-Extension for equity-focused review guidelines, the authors systematically searched documentary evidence from seven databases (BMC, CINHAL Plus, Cochrane, Google Scholar, PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus) to identify studies conducted and published on African countries between April 2013 and December 31, 2020.

Results: From identified 213 records, 21 studies were included in the final synthesis. Major results showed inadequate studies on NCD policy, unsatisfactory NCD-related policy development, poor policy implementation, lack of policy equity to combat NCDs, and lack of data recorded on NCDs’ prevalence, morbidity, and mortality.

Conclusion: The rigorous WHO-endorsed NCD policies and prevention strategies on the African continent might debar African policymakers and leaders from developing and implementing indigenous NCD-combating strategies. Continent-wide innovative and indigenous NCD-prevention policies and policy equity to effectively prevent, control, and manage NCDs must be developed by African scientists and policymakers.

"Part of the Solution": Food Corporation Strategies for Regulatory Capture and Legitimacy

BACKGROUND

For decades, the food industry has sought to deflect criticisms of its products and block public health legislation through a range of offensive and defensive strategies. More recently, food corporations have moved on to present themselves as "part of the solution" to the health problems their products cause. This strategic approach is characterised by appeasement, co-option and partnership, and involves incremental concessions and attempts to partner with health actors. This paper details how corporate practices have evolved and changed over the past two decades and gives some definition to what this new political economy signifies for the wider behaviours of corporations producing and selling harmful commodities.

METHODS

This paper draws on public health and political science literature to classify the food industry's "part of the solution" strategy into three broad components: regulatory responses and capture; relationship building; and market strategies. We detail the key characteristics and consequences of each component.

RESULTS

The three components of the food industry's "part of the solution" strategy all involve elements of appeasement and co-option. They also improve the political environment and resources of the food industry. Regulatory responses offer incremental concessions that seek to maintain corporate influence over governance processes and minimise the threat of regulations; relationship building fosters access to health and government stakeholders, and opportunities to acquire and maintain channels of direct influence; and market strategies to make products and portfolios healthier bolster the market share and revenue of food corporations while improving their public image.

CONCLUSION

Rather being a signal of lost position and power, the food industry's repositioning as "part of the solution" has created a highly profitable political economy of 'healthy' food production, alongside continued production of unhealthy commodities, a strategy in which it is also less burdensome and conflictual for corporations to exercise political power and influence.

Supply Management 2.0: A Policy Assessment and a Possible Roadmap for the Canadian Dairy Sector

Many believe the current Canadian Dairy supply management system is outdated. Examining a recent consumer survey suggests consumers, especially among the younger generations, have mixed feelings about how the Canadian dairy industry is good for the environment or whether animals in the sector are humanely treated. The general Canadian public strongly supports financial stability for farmers, though is not fully educated about how supply management works. Issues regarding the centralization and amalgamation of the industry, making many regions underserved; recent milk dumping due to a strong shift in demand caused by COVID-19; and the popularity of dairy alternatives, show that the dairy sector in Canada is ill-prepared for major change. Dairy farmers are receiving compensation for trade deals recently ratified by the federal government, creating a precedent that will lead to an overcapitalized industry. The aim of this paper is to review the industry's current state and suggest a roadmap for a more prosperous future.