INFORMAS e-Newsletter 2017 Issue #2

Progress Comment – Boyd Swinburn

Dear INFORMASeurs,
In a few weeks many of you will be coming to the International Congress on Nutrition in Buenos Aires. We look forward to seeing you at the two INFORMAS symposia in the Congress – on Monday 16^th October at 1130 is the symposium on ‘Benchmarking government policies to improve food environments globally’ and on Wednesday 18^th October at 1130 we will hear presentations from several INFORMAS modules in the symposium on ‘Potential of monitoring food environments for improving accountability and policy’.

We would especially like to also welcome you to a special post-conference INFORMAS satellite on ‘INFORMAS – future directions for benchmarking food environments’ kindly supported by the International Development Research Center of Canada. This will be on Friday 20^th October 11a.m-5pm (lunch is included). This will provide an excellent opportunity for researchers to help shape the future of measuring food environments and there will also be a preview and critique of parts of the forthcoming Lancet Commission on Obesity report. Please register for this satellite with Sally Mackay (sally.mackay@auckland.ac.nz).

I look forward to seeing many of you in Buenos Aires.

Ka kite ano
Boyd

Country Highlight – Canada

Dr Lana Vanderlee

Dr Lana Vanderlee – CIHR Banting Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto, Canada.

INFORMAS work is ongoing in Canada in 8 of the 9 modules. Food composition data has been collected using the Food Labelling Information Program (FLIP), led by Dr. L’Abbé and includes data on over 25,000 products (i.e. >10,000 products collected in 2010 and >15,000 products in 2013).

An additional FLIP data collection is currently underway and will be finished in September/October 2017.

Food-EPI work is in the final stages of completion, and our pilot of company policies with the BIA-Obesity tool is underway. Data analysis is ongoing, and we expect several publications and presentations on this data throughout the end of 2017 in Food-EPI, food composition, food labelling, food price and food promotion modules.

Acknowledgements / Funders

Canadian Institutes of Health Research
Burroughs Wellcome Trust

INFORMAS in Canada is led by Dr. Mary L’Abbé.

EarleW. McHenry Professor and Chair of the Department of Nutritional Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto.

Canada has developed a Food-EPI Logo. The Canadian version has “Canada below the Food-EPI that is used on Canadian documents and others could adapt to make it country specific.

There are two versions, a standard version and a version for dark backgrounds.

Highlights – Public Sector Module: New Zealand 2017 Food-EPI

Sally Mackay

Sally Mackay is a PHD Candidate, Registered Nutritionist and Researcher for INFORMAS at the University of Auckland, New Zealand.

It is critical that the Government implements widely recommended preventive policies and actions to increase the healthiness of food environments. Food-EPI is an initiative of INFORMAS that has been conducted in 12 countries. In New Zealand, Food-EPI is being conducted twice – firstly in 2014 and then repeated in 2017 prior to the upcoming national election.

Food-EPI assesses the level of implementation of government policies and infrastructure support considered good practice compared to international benchmarks. Expert panels rated the 47 good practice indicators in 2014 and 2017. There were some areas where New Zealand is at the level of best practice, and there are some areas of progress compared to 2014 (Health Star Rating, Healthy Food and Drink Policy, platforms for interaction, community based approaches). However about half of the indicators continued to show major implementation gaps.

53 concrete actions for implementation by the New Zealand Government to improve the healthiness of food environments were identified and prioritized for importance and achievability by experts at workshops. Most of the actions proposed in 2017 were similar to those proposed in 2014 due to lack of progress. The top recommendations focused on strengthening the childhood obesity plan, policy objectives and targets to reduce obesity prevalence and inequalities, and more and stronger policies to create healthy children’s food environments along with increased funding.

MEETINGS & EVENTS

Upcoming: International Congress on Nutrition, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 15-20 October 2017.

There will be two INFORMAS symposia as part of the congress, plus a workshop on the final day of the workshop but separate to the congress.

Congress symposium Monday 16th October 1130-1330: Benchmarking government policies to improve food environments globally.
Congress Symposium Wednesday 18th October 1130-1330: Potential of monitoring food environments for improving accountability and policy.
Post Congress workshop Friday 20th October 1100-1700: See details below.

A number of key INFORMAS members will be attending this event, so add this to your diary if you are interested in INFORMAS as there will be plenty of opportunities to network and learn about INFORMAS. Click here for the ICN2017 website.

INFORMAS satellite meeting – International Congress on Nutrition

When: 20 October 2017 11am to 5pm
Venue: NH Hotel Crillón, 796 Santa Fe Avenue 796 (500m from conference venue)
Registration: Numbers limited. No cost. Please register by Monday 9^th October; email Sally Mackay sally.mackay@auckland.ac.nz

Synopsis:
INFORMAS is taking the opportunity of having many people from its network being in Buenos Aires for the ICN to host a satellite workshop.
Objectives:

INFORMAS progress and future directions: To share the progress of INFORMAS to date and to discuss future directions including:
- Regional systems for monitoring support, training, regional databases/websites etc (Latin America currently investigating this)
- Funding, network functions, communications, country comparative analyses etc.
INFORMAS modules: To share experiences and improve specific modules (processes, protocols, dissemination, publication etc).
INFORMAS within accountability systems: To critique the draft section of the Lancet Commission on Obesity report related to monitoring for accountability.

Draft program
11.00-12.30               INFORMAS progress and future directions
Plenary presentations (Boyd Swinburn, module leader
representative, country
leader representative)
Panel discussion
12.30-13.30               Lunch
13.30-15.00               INFORMAS modules
Small groups on existing and potential new modules, report back
15.00-15.30               Coffee break
15.30-17.00               INFORMAS within global accountability systems
Presentation on the draft section on ‘Monitoring for
accountability’ in the Lancet Commission on Obesity report
(Stefanie Vandevijvere)
Small group critique and feedback

STUDENT’S CORNER

INFORMAS is an excellent framework for PhD students from a range of countries to be involved in research on INFORMAS modules.

Ng See Hoe (William), PhD Candidate (Public & Private Sector)

I am Ng See Hoe (William), a Malaysian with Dietetics background trained at the National University of Malaysia (UKM). I embarked into research for my Master degree (UKM) in 2012 and guided by a passionate mentor – Prof. Dr. Tilakavati Karupaiah. This project was led by an INFORMAS module leader – Dr. Bridget Kelly and it was about unhealthy food promotion to children in participating Asia- Pacific countries. Unknowing to us in Malaysia, this small project lead to another larger collaborative project with INFORMAS in 2015, funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada. The project lead by Prof Karupaiah, is ongoing, involving Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia and mentored by INFORMAS.
With encouragement and support from key persons who I met along this journey, I am now pursuing my dream of a PhD scholarship at the University of Wollongong under the support of the Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship, and jointly supervised by Dr. Bridget Kelly and Prof. Dr. Heather Yeatman. My research project is within the IDRC funded project on the food environment evaluation in Malaysia, which means conducting both public and private sector modules of INFORMAS. This project would never have taken off without extensive support from INFORMAS, in particular Prof. Dr. Boyd Swinburn, Dr. Stefanie Vandevijvere and Dr. Gary Sacks. We have just completed the public sector, and looking forward to starting the private sector in the near future.

LATEST PUBLICATIONS

Phulkerd, S, Sacks, G, Vandevijvere S, Worsley, A & Lawrence, M. Barriers and potential facilitators to the implementation of government policies on front-of-pack food labeling and restriction of unhealthy food advertising in Thailand. Food Policy. 2017; http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2017.07.014

Mialon, M & Mialon, J. Corporate political activity of the dairy industry in France: an analysis of publicly available information. Public Health Nutrition. 2017; doi:1017/S1368980017001197

Nieto, C, Rincon-Gallardo Patino, S, Tolentino-Mayo, L, Carriedo, A & Barquera, S. Characterization of Breakfast Cereals Available in the Mexican Market: Sodium and Sugar Content. Nutrients 2017. 2017; doi: 10.3390/nu9080884

Kanter. R., Reyes, M., & Corvalán, C. Photographic methods for measuring packaged food and beverage products in supermarkets. Current Developments in Nutrition. 2017;
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3945/cdn.117.001016

For more publications, please visit the INFORMAS website.