Improving local food environments: Stakeholders’ perceptions and systemic efforts to transition towards healthy and sustainable local food environments

Summary

The food environment consists of political, physical, economic, and socio-cultural factors shaping food choices. Today’s food environment tends to promote the consumption of unhealthy and unsustainable foods, with serious consequences for human and planetary health. This thesis reveals that most citizens perceive this unhealthy local food environment as normal and acceptable, which contributes to making the unhealthy and unsustainable choice the obvious choice. This thesis also uncovers the complex and dynamic individual, socio-economic, political, commercial, and societal factors that shape this food environment, highlighting the importance of addressing this complexity to improve the local food environment.

This thesis identified how municipalities can structurally improve the food environment with other local stakeholders, despite the limited availability of legal instruments. Findings demonstrate that policymakers may engage local stakeholders in the policymaking process to identify systemic measures to address the food environment. However, findings also show the challenges that arise when private stakeholders are involved in policymaking processes addressing the food environment, as their interests don’t always align with public health goals.