Assessing the Feasibility and Impact of Federal Childhood Obesity Policies

Victoria L. Brescoll, Rogan Kersh and Kelly D. Brownell
Additional contact information
Victoria L. Brescoll: Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University
Rogan Kersh: NYU's Wagner School of Public Service
Kelly D. Brownell: Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 2008, vol. 615, issue 1, 178-194

Abstract: Research on childhood obesity has primarily been conducted by experts in nutrition, psychology, and medicine. Only recently have public policy scholars devoted serious work to this burgeoning public health crisis. Here the authors advance that research by surveying national experts in health/nutrition and health policy on the public health impact and the political feasibility of fifty-one federal policy options for addressing childhood obesity. Policies that were viewed as politically infeasible but having a great impact on childhood obesity emphasized outright bans on certain activities. In contrast, education and information dissemination policies were viewed as having the potential to receive a favorable hearing from national policy makers but little potential public health impact. Both nutrition and policy experts believed that increasing funding for research would be beneficial and politically feasible. A central need for the field is to develop the means to make high-impact policies more politically feasible.

Keywords: childhood obesity; obesity policy; obesity prevention; nutrition; public policy; school lunch (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0002716207309189 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:anname:v:615:y:2008:i:1:p:178-194

DOI: 10.1177/0002716207309189

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().