How can advocates leverage power to advance comprehensive regulation on ultra-processed foods? learning from advocate experience in Argentina

Wahnschafft, Simone; Spiller, Achim; Graciano, Beatriz Andrea

doi:10.1186/s12992-024-01069-1

Globalization and Health

Table 2 Knowledge and evidence documents generated by policy advocates in Argentina

From: How can advocates leverage power to advance comprehensive regulation on ultra-processed foods? learning from advocate experience in Argentina

Document	Relevance to policy process	Year of publication	Author(s)*
- Food advertising aimed at boys and girls on Argentine TV	Examine prevalence of and exposure to UPF marketing amongst children and adolescents	2015	FIC
- Marketing techniques aimed at boys and girls in processed food packaging in Argentina		2017
- Food advertising on Argentinean television: are ultra-processed foods in the lead?		2018
- Exposure of boys, girls and adolescents to digital marketing of food and beverages in Argentina		2021	UNICEF
- 4th National Survey of Risk Factors	Examine the nutrition and prevalence of diet-related diseases and associated risk factors in the population	2018	MOH
- Argentina National Survey of Nutrition and Health, 2018–2019 (ENNyS 2)		2019	MOH
- Sugary drinks in Argentina: burden of disease and impact of health interventions		2020	IECS
- Lessons learned from tobacco control: court decisions that ratify public health policies	Develop an understanding of the political and regulatory landscape	2020	FIC
- Front warning labelling bill: economic arguments that support it		2020	FIC
- Regulatory mapping: front food labelling		2020	FIC and IDEC
- Front food labelling in Argentina and Brazil: legal barriers and facilitators		2020	FIC and IDEC
- Conflict of interest and interference of the food industry in the design of healthy eating policies		2020	Various
- Evaluation of the performance of the front of package warning labelling compared to other models in Argentina	Supporting evidence for effective policy design	2020	MOH
- Analysis of the level of concordance of nutrient profile systems with the Dietary Guidelines for the Argentine Population		2020	MOH
- Evaluation of nutrient profile systems Nutritional for the definition of a front of package labelling policy in Argentina		2020	FIC
- Survey to evaluate the influence of three front of package labelling systems in the perception of healthiness and the purchase intention of certain products - Opinion survey on front labelling of warnings in food and drinks		2021	FIC

*FIC = Inter-American Heart Foundation; MOH = Ministry of Health; IECS = Institute of Clinical and Health Effectiveness; IDEC = Brazilian Institute for Consumer Protection; Various = published by the National Coalition to Prevent Obesity in Children and Adolescents representing a network of civil society organizations in Argentina
Generating evidence was also key to influencing the design of the regulation. As discussions in both the Executive and Legislative branches began to gain momentum, industry and associated stakeholders sought to influence the design of the proposed regulation in ways that would be more favorable to corporate interests, such as the type of FOP labelling scheme and the NPM to be adopted. In 2017, for example, COPAL released a proposal calling for the adoption of a label following the Guideline Daily Amount (GDA) model used in the United Kingdom [112], which has been demonstrated in studies to be less effective than warning labels in shaping consumer understanding, attitudes, and choices [67, 69]. Similarly, the industry argued for a NPM that defined excess nutrients on a ‘per gram’ basis [113], which would have made it easier for companies to evade the labels than with the PAHO NPM. To counter these instances of CPA in the policy process, advocates pointed to the importance of locally generated evidence to support arguments for the proposed policy design:

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ISSN: 1744-8603

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