title: The impact of interventions to promote healthier ready-to-eat meals (to eat in, to take away or to be delivered) sold by specific food outlets open to the general public: a systematic review.
abstract: Ready-to-eat meals sold by food outlets that are accessible to the general public are an important target for public health intervention. We conducted a systematic review to assess the impact of such interventions.
  
  
  
  Studies of any design and duration that included any consumer-level or food-outlet-level before-and-after data were included.
  
  
  
  Thirty studies describing 34 interventions were categorized by type and coded against the Nuffield intervention ladder: restrict choice = trans fat law (n = 1), changing pre-packed children's meal content (n = 1) and food outlet award schemes (n = 2); guide choice = price increases for unhealthier choices (n = 1), incentive (contingent reward) (n = 1) and price decreases for healthier choices (n = 2); enable choice = signposting (highlighting healthier/unhealthier options) (n = 10) and telemarketing (offering support for the provision of healthier options to businesses via telephone) (n = 2); and provide information = calorie labelling law (n = 12), voluntary nutrient labelling (n = 1) and personalized receipts (n = 1). Most interventions were aimed at adults in US fast food chains and assessed customer-level outcomes. More 'intrusive' interventions that restricted or guided choice generally showed a positive impact on food-outlet-level and customer-level outcomes. However, interventions that simply provided information or enabled choice had a negligible impact.
  
  
  
  Interventions to promote healthier ready-to-eat meals sold by food outlets should restrict choice or guide choice through incentives/disincentives. Public health policies and practice that simply involve providing information are unlikely to be effective.
authors.affiliation: Obesity Related Behaviours Research Group, School of Medicine, Pharmacy and Health, Durham University, Stockton-on-Tees, UK.|Fuse - UKCRC Centre for Translational Research in Public Health, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK.
authors.forename: F C
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-9031-4801
authors.initials: FC
authors.lastname: Hillier-Brown
authors.affiliation: Obesity Related Behaviours Research Group, School of Medicine, Pharmacy and Health, Durham University, Stockton-on-Tees, UK.|Fuse - UKCRC Centre for Translational Research in Public Health, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK.
authors.forename: C D
authors.initials: CD
authors.lastname: Summerbell
authors.affiliation: Obesity Related Behaviours Research Group, School of Medicine, Pharmacy and Health, Durham University, Stockton-on-Tees, UK.|Fuse - UKCRC Centre for Translational Research in Public Health, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK.
authors.forename: H J
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Moore
authors.affiliation: School of Sport Exercise and Health Sciences, Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Routen
authors.affiliation: Fuse - UKCRC Centre for Translational Research in Public Health, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK.|Centre for Public Policy & Health, School of Medicine, Pharmacy & Health, Durham University, Stockton-on-Tees, UK.
authors.forename: A A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Lake
authors.affiliation: UKCRC Centre for Diet and Activity Research (CEDAR), MRC Epidemiology Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Adams
authors.affiliation: UKCRC Centre for Diet and Activity Research (CEDAR), MRC Epidemiology Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.|Institute of Health & Society, Newcastle University, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: White
authors.affiliation: Fuse - UKCRC Centre for Translational Research in Public Health, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK.|Institute of Health & Society, Newcastle University, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK.
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Araujo-Soares
authors.affiliation: Psychology Applied to Heath, University of Exeter Medical School, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Abraham
authors.affiliation: Fuse - UKCRC Centre for Translational Research in Public Health, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK.|Institute of Health & Society, Newcastle University, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK.|Human Nutrition Research Centre, Newcastle University, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK.
authors.forename: A J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Adamson
authors.affiliation: Obesity Related Behaviours Research Group, School of Medicine, Pharmacy and Health, Durham University, Stockton-on-Tees, UK.|Fuse - UKCRC Centre for Translational Research in Public Health, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK.
authors.forename: T J
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Brown
mesh_terms: D002755:Choice Behavior; D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D000072001:Diet, Healthy; D057140:Fast Foods; D005518:Food Preferences; D006293:Health Promotion; D006801:Humans; D065228:Non-Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic; D011634:Public Health; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic; D012147:Restaurants
keywords: Diet; food environments; ready-to-eat meals; restaurants; systematic review; takeaways