Anniek de Ruijter on Dutch television on regulating the food environment
16 December 2023
Anniek de Ruijter, Bastiaan Wallage and Hannah van Kolfschooten, from the Law Centre for Health and Life, were part of an interdisciplinary team of scientists at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) and the Amsterdam UMC that developed a method to measure the health of food environments. This approach proposes for the first time a measurement tool to assess neighbourhoods and streets for their 'food environment score', similar to assessing air quality. The research, published in December 2023, shows how this tool opens the way to effective regulation of food environments to address health risks such as obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. This innovative method, based on the Nutrition Centre's Disk of Five criteria, reveals disturbing findings. In a tested Amsterdam shopping street, as much as 77% of the food on offer did not meet these health guidelines. This indicates an overwhelming presence of unhealthy food offerings. The measurement tool developed, including a consideration framework, allows municipalities to regulate the food environment. It allows them to make decisions on whether to allow new shops selling food, with the aim of creating healthier food environments and protecting citizens' health.
It's the same as before we couldn't measure air quality and when we could measure it, we could regulate it. That is actually the revolution actually brought about by this research. That we say 'Now we can measure it, that means now we can actually start doing something'.Anniek de Ruijter on Dutch television show EenVandaag
On Dutch television programme EenVandaag covered the report in its Friday 15 December 2023 broadcast. Anniek de Ruijter spoke there about the report and the revolution the new method will bring to regulating the food environment in the city.