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The prevalence of obesity has increased significantly worldwide, including in low- and middle-income countries. In Ecuador, a middle-income country, the government has implemented two policies to improve the quality of its population's diet: (1) a traffic-light (TL) nutritional labeling requirement for processed foods and (2) a special tax scheme for drinks with a high sugar content (HSC). This study examines changes in carbonated soft drink (CSD) sugar formulation and its associated impacts on sugar consumption after the implementation of these two policies. Sugar content in soft drinks was obtained from the National Agency for Health Regulation, Control, and Surveillance (ARCSA) and directly from the labels of carbonated soft drinks sold in the country. CSD monthly purchase data from January 2013 to December 2019 were obtained from the Kantar World Panel (Ecuador). Mixed reactions followed the introduction of the TL in the sugar content reformulation of CSD. In contrast, the implementation of the HSC tax scheme was followed by extensive efforts to reformulate CSD as all brands studied decreased their sugar content. We also found evidence that CSD consumption reduced significantly after the HSC tax scheme was imposed. Overall, sugar consumption linked to CSD decreased after the implementation of these two policies. Still, most of this decrease is related to reformulation activities observed after the HSC tax scheme was implemented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study introduces distribution-free methods to estimate interval-censored willingness-to-pay (WTP) models. The approaches proposed encompass the recovery of WTP values using an iterated conditional expectation procedure and subsequent estimation of the mean WTP using parametric and nonparametric models. Methods allow us to estimate the effects of covariates on the mean WTP and the underlying probability distribution.We employ Monte Carlo simulations to compare the performance of the estimators proposed against standard parametric and nonparametric estimators. We illustrate the estimation techniques by assessing producers' WTP for services provided by an e-marketing website that helps connect farmers with local consumers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study was designed to identify households' characteristics associated with participation in private food charities compared to those associated with participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). This cross-sectional study used data from the National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey (FoodAPS). The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and generalized and multiple linear regression models. Participants in SNAP and private food charities were found to differ across several sociodemographic characteristics. Overall, households who use private food charities were found to be older and poorer relative to SNAP households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]