Public Health - The Case for Early Intervention

The context of the publication of this paper on early intervention is a call from the British Prime Minister Tony Blair for information papers on the evolution of the role of the state in promoting social progress.
The author states that the key rationale for acting to alter consumption patterns of children is that evidence supports the fact that lifestyle habits, in particular those affecting quality of diet, track from childhood into adulthood. She points out that there is a plethora of information available to the public on healthy diet. Therefore, people seem to know what is good health practice and what they intend to do for themselves. However, evidence from research on behaviour change shows that they do not do what they intend.

The following communication strategies are recommended in the document:

• Work with public and consumer health interests and the food industry on consistency of key messages.
• Use social marketing through government/media partnerships to identify techniques effective with particular consumer groups and to research effective information and advice delivery for replication of techniques.
• Provide practical information alongside other supportive measures and/or actions to remove barriers to consumer change.
• Use government action to catalyse changes in the information available in the marketplace such as the requirement of "front-of-pack simplified nutrition labelling."
• Finally, change the school and promotional environment to help families make changes. The whole school approach - improving school food while using the curriculum for reinforcement - has a key role to play in changing children's diets.

In conclusion, the author promotes information as the key to improving people's diets but says that to be effective it must be trusted, relevant, targeted, easy to assess, practical to use and supported by initiatives for change.