The “new ferment” in national health policies: The case of Norway's nutrition and food policy

Abstract

In all western countries presently, because of the rise of costs in the personal health services coupled with their inability to promote health, alternatives are being sought to contain the cost escalation and to improve health status. This situation appears to be resulting in a “new ferment” in the health polices of these nations, where non-specific, collective health promotion is increasingly being emphasized, and where the continued rate of development of personal health services is being reconsidered. The prevailing trend in health promotion appears to be in the area of health education and information. In light of the present prevailing trend, the Norwegian situation is quite unique. The most important health-promoting policy being developed in that country is the nutrition and food policy, which is the outcome of an ongoing effort to generate a national agricultural policy. It is the first national policy to comply with the recommendations of the 1974 World Food Conference for a global food supply plan. Unlike the focus of health promotion in the other countries of the western world, it does not emphasize individual behavior as much as it proposes to change dietary habits by changing the process of food production and distribution in order to prevent the availability of unhealthy foods. It thus changes the ideology of prevailing health promotion away from the market and demand orientation which is implicit in policies focusing on the individual, to the supply and collective orientation commonly associated with countries with planned economies. The aim of the policy is to establish professionally determined acceptable levels of nutrition, and to plan the food supply accordingly. This article discusses the assumptions underlying the policy, its overall goals and the means of implementation that it places at the policy-makers' disposal.