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The consumption of sugary drinks is considered one of the major drivers of the global obesity epidemic and is related to tooth decay, diabetes and heart disease. Many public health agencies, including the World Health Organization (WHO), have called on governments, the food and beverage industry, educational institutions, places to work and civil society to support healthier drink choices.
This new Cochrane Review summarizes evidence from research studies testing different ways to reduce the consumption of sugary drinks at the population level. A team of researchers from Germany and the United Kingdom examined the results of 58 studies evaluating various approaches and strategies to change the physical or social environment in which people consume or buy sugary drinks. The studies were conducted in a variety of settings, including schools, cafes, restaurants, homes and outlets. The studies evaluated a wide range of different approaches to reduce consumption, such as labeling and pricing of sugar-sweetened beverages and healthy alternatives. They also discussed broader policy initiatives such as community campaigns to encourage healthier choices. The studies were conducted in 19 countries of North and South America, Australasia, Europe and Southeast Asia.
Among the major categories of interventions studied (labeling, nutritional standards, price increases and subsidies, home-based interventions, interventions targeting the entire food supply, retail and food services, and cross-sectoral approaches such as food aid programs and trade and investment policies), the certainty of evidence for specific measures ranged from very low to moderate.
The authors of the review have identified a number of measures for which available scientific evidence indicates a reduction in the amount of sugary drinks that people drink. These measures include:
- Easy-to-understand labels, such as "traffic lights" and labels indicating the integrity of drinks with stars or numbers.
- Limits on the availability of sugary drinks in schools.
- Rising prices of sweetened beverages in restaurants, shops and recreation centers.
- Children's menus in restaurant chains that include healthier drinks instead of sugary drinks.
- Promotion and better placement of healthier beverages in supermarkets.
- Government food benefits (eg, food stamps) that can not be used to buy sugary drinks.
- Community campaigns focused on healthy choices in beverages.
- Measures that improve the availability of low-calorie beverages at home, for example through home deliveries of water bottles and diet drinks.
The Cochrane Authors have also found evidence that a better availability of drinking water and diet drinks at home can help people lose weight. There are also other measures that can affect the amount of sugar drinks consumed, but the available data are less reliable.
Previous research has shown that health education and taxation of sugary drinks can also help reduce their consumption, but these approaches have not been examined in this review. Taxation of sweetened drinks, unprocessed sugar and added foods will be examined in two future Cochrane Reviews.
The author of the review, Hans Hauner, professor of nutritional medicine at the Technical University of Munich, Germany, and a world expert in the field, commented: "The rates of obesity and of diabetes is increasing worldwide and this trend will not be reversed without broad and effective action Governments and industry in particular must do their part to make healthy choice an easy choice for consumers. key measures that can contribute to achieving this objective. "
The author of the journal, Eva Rehfuess, professor of research on public health and health services at the LMU Munich, Germany, said: "This review highlights the essential elements of a overall strategy to support healthy beverage choices for the general population, however we need to do more work to understand what works best in specific environments, such as schools and workplaces, to people from different socio-economic and cultural backgrounds and in countries with different levels of economic development, which would help us to further improve existing approaches, so practitioners who implement such measures should cooperate with researchers to high quality evaluations. "
The lead author of the review, Peter von Philipsborn, badociate researcher at the LMU in Munich, Germany, said: "Sugary drinks are a global problem, and middle-income countries such as South Africa, Mexico and Brazil are particularly affected, considered by policy makers around the world. "
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This Cochrane Review of Cochrane Public Health was conducted by researchers affiliated with the Institute for Medical Information Processing, Biometrics and Epidemiology at the Pettenkofer School of Public Health at LMU Munich, the Technical University of Munich and from University College London.
Additional information
Complete quote: Von Philipsborn P, Stratil J, J Burns, LK Busert, LM Pfadenhauer, Polus S, Holzapfel C, Hauner H, Rehfuess E. Environmental interventions to reduce the consumption of sugary drinks and their effects on health. Cochrane systematic reviews database, 2019, number 6. Art. N °: CD012292. https: /
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