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Investing for Health: Potential Mechanisms for the Investment Community to Contribute to Obesity Prevention and Improved Nutrition

  • The Obesity Epidemic: Causes and Consequences (A Cameron and K Backholer, Section Editors)
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Abstract

Purpose of Review

There is a critical need for corporations to be part of the solutions to major societal issues, such as obesity. Investment decisions can have a substantial impact on both corporate practices and population health. This paper aimed to explore potential mechanisms for incorporating obesity and related nutrition considerations into responsible investment (RI) approaches.

Recent Findings

We found that there are a number of available strategies for the investment community to incorporate obesity considerations into their decisions. However, despite some recent efforts to improve company disclosure in the area and the emergence of new tools for assessing food company nutrition policies, the inclusion of obesity and related nutrition considerations as part of RI is currently extremely limited.

Summary

There appears to be substantial scope to apply approaches already in widespread use for other RI considerations to the area of obesity. Ways in which to apply measurement frameworks across different markets and sectors need to be explored.

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Acknowledgements

GS is the recipient of an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DE160100307) and a researcher within a NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence in Obesity Policy and Food Systems (APP1041020) (Australia).

The publisher and section editors wish to thank Dr. Aviva Must (Tufts University) for providing critical feedback on the content of this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Global Obesity Centre, Deakin University, Melbourne Burwood Campus, 221 Burwood Highway, Burwood, VIC, 3125, Australia

    Gary Sacks & Ella Robinson

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  1. Gary Sacks
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Correspondence to Gary Sacks.

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Conflict of Interest

Gary Sacks is an academic partner on a healthy supermarket intervention trial that includes Australian local government and supermarket retail (IGA) collaborators. In 2018, he led a study to benchmark the policies and commitments of food companies related to obesity prevention and nutrition.

Ella Robinson declares that she has no conflict of interest.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on The Obesity Epidemic: Causes and Consequences

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Sacks, G., Robinson, E. Investing for Health: Potential Mechanisms for the Investment Community to Contribute to Obesity Prevention and Improved Nutrition. Curr Obes Rep 7, 211–219 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13679-018-0314-y

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