Identifying the effects of environmental and policy change interventions on healthy eating

Obesity has been characterized as a disease. Strategies to change the incidence and prevalence of this disease include a focus on changing physical and social environments, over and above individual-level strategies, using a multilevel or systems approach. We focus our attention on evidence published between 2008 and 2013 on the effectiveness of interventions in nutrition environments, i.e., environmental interventions designed to influence the intake of healthful foods and amount of energy consumed. An overarching socioecological framework that has guided much of this research was used to characterize different types of environmental strategies. Intervention examples in each area of the framework are provided with a discussion of key findings and related conceptual and methodological issues. The emphasis in this review is on adults, but clearly this literature is only one part of the picture. Much research has been focused on child-specific interventions, including environmental interventions. Some evidence suggests effectiveness of policy-based or other types of interventions that aim to regulate or restructure environments to promote healthy dietary choices, and these strategies would apply to both children and adults. Opportunities to evaluate these policy changes in adults' social and physical environments are rare. Much of the existing research has been with children. As conceptual and methodological issues continue to be identified and resolved, we hope that future research in this domain will identify environmental strategies that can be included in intervention toolboxes to build healthy nutrition environments for both adults and children.