Food and Nutrition Policy

Course Overview

For the purpose of this course nutrition and food, the policy is viewed as a specific set of decisions with related actions, established by a government and often supported by special legislation, which addresses a nutrition or food problem or set of problems. We realize that the lack of explicit government policy may represent an implicit "hands-off" policy; however, in this course, we want to focus on explicit government policies. Effective policies include actions that enable policy goals to be achieved, and therefore should include a means of translating policy decisions into effective programs. Policies that have not been realized through program implementation represent failures and should stimulate interest in understanding why the policies have remained barren. Good programs are the best measure of good policies, and we, therefore, include programs in our broad definition of the policy. Once a problem is defined with respect to "what, who, when, where and why," we then ask whether the problem requires or is amenable to a policy solution. If so, what are the best options? Who are the stakeholders? Who will support or resist the policy? Who pays for its implementation? What impact is expected? How is it evaluated? Traditionally, nutritional policies have been realized through programs that deliver, enable access, or encourage consumption of food or supplements; obviously, problems associated with over-nutrition will require a different approach. Nutrition policies should be evidence-based and purposeful, aiming to meet nutritional needs; the same is not necessarily true of food policies, although they frequently will have nutritional effects. As background, we discuss the evidence base of policies, but assuming the evidence base is sound, more important are:

• the contexts (nutritional, political, economic, cultural, etc.) in which policies are developed,
• the processes and interaction of stakeholders which lead to policy decisions,
• the translation of policies into feasible programs,
• the evaluation of nutritional and other impacts (intended and unintended, positive and negative, measurable or not), and
• an assessment of the forces which hinder or help the implementation of the policy.

We evaluate policies on the extent to which they meet these criteria. We recognize that implemented policies rarely play out so systematically, but we believe that these criteria are useful in understanding existing policies and designing new ones.

Course Objectives

After completion of this course, students will be able to: i. identify food and nutrition problems amenable to policy intervention; ii. define criteria of effective food or nutrition policies; iii. critique a specific food and/or nutrition policy with respect to its evidence-base, adequacy of implementation, nutritional impact and forces which hinder or help the implementation of the specific policy.

Prerequisites

There are no formal prerequisites for taking the course; however, students are expected to be familiar with the basic principles of nutrition. Students are strongly encouraged to broaden their reading in the subjects related to the nutritional problems and policies that are addressed in the course in order to fully participate in class discussions and in order to prepare a paper critiquing a specific food or nutrition policy.