CIAA welcomes the publication of the White Paper entitled ‘A Strategy for Europe on Nutrition, Overweight and Obesity related to health issues’. In particular it strongly supports the approach taken by the Commission in this paper, which focuses on three factors:

1. individuals are ultimately responsible for their lifestyle
2. only well-informed consumers are able to make rational decisions
3. an optimal response will be achieved by promoting both the complementarity and integration of the different policy areas and of the different levels of action

Europe’s food and drink industry has argued that the causes of obesity and its related illnesses are multifactorial and is pleased that the Commission White Paper reflects this in its call for integration of policies across the board: from food to consumer, to sport, education and transport.

CIAA particularly welcomes the fact that the White Paper focuses extensively on the importance of encouraging physical activity and supports the Commissions’ intentions to take pro-active steps to reverse the decline in physical activity levels in recent decades.

The food and drink industry is pleased that many of the actions it has taken are reconfirmed as priorities in the Commission White Paper – specifically these include:

• providing consumers with consistent information on the nutritional content of food and drink products
• offering new, enhanced and reformulated products in a variety of serving sizes
• encouraging physical activity, promoting partnerships with doctors, teachers, schools, public health officials and non-governmental organisations

More details on many of the initiatives undertaken by CIAA’s members are highlighted in the brochure 'Promoting Balanced Diets and Healthy Lifestyles – Europe’s Food and Drink Industry in Action’ which is available for download below.

For further details please contact:

Sabine Henssler, CIAA Communications Director, Tel: +32 2 508 10 28, or +32 2 514 11 11 s.henssler@ciaa.eu