Nutrition and health: patterns and policy perspectives in food-rich countries

Nutrition and health are becoming legitimate policy issues in food-rich countries. Dietary patterns contribute to a large share of the dominant chronic disease profile in advanced industrial nations, burdening the public purse. Major issues facing governments concern decisions about the appropriate goals, scope, and instruments for effective policy, and the apparatus to promote it. Norway, using a long term, explicit and comprehensive public policy, and the U.S., using a market-oriented strategy, illustrate contrasting policy approaches to the issues. The experience of both have implications for current policy-making in other countries and for the kind of research needed to support it.