Search

Global corporate-industrial meat production is associated with harms to social, animal, and planetary health. Although national policy discussions are lacking, some studies suggest addressing these harms through taxation and supply chain standards. However, these proposals overlook the potential role of corporate power in creating and perpetuating these harms. Our study addresses this gap by examining how political, economic, and structural features of food systems enable the meat industry to externalize costs of production and perpetuate ecological and social harms. Here, we analyze three case studies from different stages of global supply chains, revealing a highly concentrated meat industry, close industry-government ties, reduced regulatory oversight, and entrenched cultural norms about meat’s significance to food security. It calls for policy responses that address the economic and political power of the meat industry and the enabling of social and ecological externalities. Finally, it recommends adoption of a whole-of-food system approach to addressing unaccountable industry power.

Comprehensive metrics that provide a measure of dietary patterns at global and national levels are needed to inform and assess the effectiveness of policy actions that promote sustainable healthy diets. In 2019, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the World Health Organization reported 16 guiding principles of sustainable healthy diets, but it is still unknown how these principles are considered in dietary metrics. This scoping review aimed to explore how principles of sustainable healthy diets are considered in dietary metrics used worldwide. Forty-eight food-based, investigator-defined dietary pattern metrics assessing diet quality in free-living, healthy populations at the individual or household level were assessed against the 16 guiding principles of sustainable healthy diets, which was used as a theoretical framework. A strong adherence of the metrics to health-related guiding principles was found. Metrics had a weak adherence to principles related to environmental and sociocultural aspects of diets, except for the principle related to diets being culturally appropriate. No existing dietary metric captures all principles of sustainable healthy diets. Notably, the significance food processing, environmental, and sociocultural aspects of diets are generally understated. This likely reflects the lack of focus on these aspects in current dietary guidelines, which highlights the importance of including these emerging topics in future dietary recommendations. The absence of quantitative metrics that comprehensively measure sustainable healthy diets limits the body of evidence that would otherwise inform national and international guideline developments. Our findings can help grow the quantity and quality of the body of evidence available to inform policy activities to realize 2030 Sustainable Development Goals of multiple United Nations. Adv Nutr2022;x:xx.

ObjectiveTo examine the effect of regular breakfast consumption on weight change and energy intake in people living in high income countries.DesignSystematic review and meta-analysis.Data sourcesPubMed, Ovid Medline, and CINAHL were searched for randomised controlled trials published between January 1990 and January 2018 investigating the effect of breakfast on weight or energy intake. ClinicalTrials.gov and the World Health Organization’s International Clinical Trials Registry Platform search portal were also searched in October 2018 to identify any registered yet unpublished or ongoing trials.Eligibility criteria for selecting studiesRandomised controlled trials from high income countries in adults comparing breakfast consumption with no breakfast consumption that included a measure of body weight or energy intake. Two independent reviewers extracted the data and assessed the risk of bias of included studies. Random effects meta-analyses of the effect of breakfast consumption on weight and daily energy intake were performed.ResultsOf 13 included trials, seven examined the effect of eating breakfast on weight change, and 10 examined the effect on energy intake. Meta-analysis of the results found a small difference in weight favouring participants who skipped breakfast (mean difference 0.44 kg, 95% confidence interval 0.07 to 0.82), but there was some inconsistency across trial results (I2=43%). Participants assigned to breakfast had a higher total daily energy intake than those assigned to skip breakfast (mean difference 259.79 kcal/day, 78.87 to 440.71; 1 kcal=4.18 kJ), despite substantial inconsistency across trial results (I2=80%). All of the included trials were at high or unclear risk of bias in at least one domain and had only short term follow-ups (mean period seven weeks for weight, two weeks for energy intake). As the quality of the included studies was mostly low, the findings should be interpreted with caution.ConclusionThis study suggests that the addition of breakfast might not be a good strategy for weight loss, regardless of established breakfast habit. Caution is needed when recommending breakfast for weight loss in adults, as it could have the opposite effect. Further randomised controlled trials of high quality are needed to examine the role of breakfast eating in the approach to weight management.Study registrationPROSPERO registration number CRD42017057687.