National Policies to Limit Food Marketing and Competitive Food Sales in Schools: A Global Scoping Review

Abstract

School food environments contribute to children’s nutritional intake and overall health. As such, the World Health Organization and other public health organizations encourage policies that restrict children’s access and exposure to foods and beverages that do not build health in and around schools. This global scoping review explores the presence and characteristics of policies that restrict competitive food sales and marketing for unhealthy foods across 193 countries using evidence from policy databases, gray literature, peer-reviewed literature, and primary policy documents. Policies were included if they were nationally mandated and regulated marketing and/or competitive foods in the school environments. Worldwide, only 28% of countries were found to have any national-level policy restricting food marketing or competitive food sales in schools: 16% of countries restrict marketing, 25% restrict competitive foods, and 12% restrict both. Over half of policies were found in high-income countries. No low-income countries had either policy type. Eight marketing policies (27%) and 14 competitive foods policies (29%) lacked explicit guidelines for either policy monitoring or enforcement. Future research is needed to assess the prevalence of policies aimed at improving other key aspects of the school food environment, such as dietary quality of school meals or food procurement, as well as assess the implementation and efficacy of existing policies.