Why some population interventions for dieting and obesity are better than others

Public health interventions that require individuals to invest fewer personal and psychological resources are more likely to be most effective. Researchers from the University of Cambridge identified two main approaches for improving diets from governmental perspectives, the first looks at the population and aims to elicit modest reductions in risk to everyone, whilst the other tries to focus on individual agency and personal will to benefit from interventions.

The researchers found that many population interventions do not all have the same effect and these are the interventions that are currently favoured by governments around the world. For example, encouraging people to cook at home may be difficult when many can’t afford to, they don’t have the correct facilities, or enough time. However, population interventions that require little to no individual agency are the most likely to be beneficial, this could be something as simple as reducing salt in diet or even processed food. Therefore, the researchers are promoting the development, evaluation and implementation of population interventions that require low levels of agency for individuals to benefit more.