Food Policy
Integrating Health, Environment and Society

Food policy has long been viewed as an essential part of the public health agenda, but this book identifies the importance of environmental damage and social inequalities to these complex issues. The authors offer a comprehensive review of current and past food policy, proposing the need for a new ecological public health approach to food policy.

Written by three authors with differing backgrounds, one in political science, another in environmental health and health promotion, and the third in social psychology, this book reflects the myriad of perspectives essential to a comprehensive view of modern food policy. It attempts to make sense of what is meant by food policy; explores whether the term has any currency in current policy discourse; assesses whether current policies help or hinder what happens; judges whether consensus can triumph in the face of competing bids for understanding; looks at all levels of governance, across the range of actors in the food system, from companies and the state to civil society and science; considers what direction food policies are taking, not just in the UK but internationally; assesses who (and what) gains or loses in the making of these food policies; and identifies a modern framework for judging how good or limited processes of policy-making are. This book provides a major comprehensive review of current and past food policy, thinking and proposing the need for what the authors call an ecological public health approach to food policy. Nothing less will be fit for the 21st century.

1. Introduction and themes
2. Defining food policy
3. Public policy and governance
4. Nutrition
5. The supply chain
6. The environment and eco-systems
7. Behaviour and culture
8. Inequality, poverty and social justice
9. Conclusions