ArticlePublic health nutrition2022
Two countries, similar practices: the political practices of the food industry influencing the adoption of key public health nutrition policies in Guatemala and Panama.
Article in Public health nutrition, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Systematic review of nutrient profile models for front-of-pack nutrition labelling.Nature food · 2026Pooled it
- Corporate influence on food and nutrition policies in Latin America and the Caribbean: key determinants and policy directions.Globalization and health · 2026Article
- Public policies addressing unhealthy diets in the South-East Asia region: identifying and countering the arguments that undermine policy implementation.Health policy and planning · 2026Article
- Corporate political activity of the food industry in the development of food policies in Latin America and the Caribbean: a narrative review of the current literature.Globalization and health · 2025Review
- Corporate activities that influence population health: a scoping review and qualitative synthesis to develop the HEALTH-CORP typology.Globalization and health · 2024Article
- Characteristics of commercial determinants of health research on corporate activities: A scoping review.PloS one · 2024Article
- The bio-food industry's corporate political activity during Health Canada's revision of Canada's food guide.Health promotion and chronic disease prevention in Canada : research, policy and practice · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTo identify the corporate political activity (CPA) strategies used by food industry actors during the development of two public health nutrition policies in Central America: Law #570 (taxation of sugar-sweetened beverages) in Panama and Bill #5504 (labelling and food marketing regulations) in Guatemala.
designWe triangulated data from publicly available information from 2018 to 2020, (e.g. industry and government materials; social media material) with semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders.
settingGuatemala and Panama.
participantsGovernment, academia and international organisations workers in health and nutrition.
designCPA strategies were categorised according to an existing internationally used taxonomy into action-based, instrumental strategies (coalition management, information management, direct involvement and influence in policy, legal action) and discursive strategies.
resultsInstrumental strategies included the establishment of relationships with policymakers and direct lobbying against the proposed public policies. Discursive strategies were mainly criticising on the unfounded ground that they lacked evidence of effectiveness and will imply negative impacts on the economy. The industry pointed at individuals for making their own food choices, in order to shift the focus away from the role of its products in contributing to ill health.
conclusionWe provide evidence of the political practices used by the food industry to interfere with the development and implementation of public health nutrition policies to improve diets in Central America. Policymakers, public health advocates and the public should be informed about those practices and develop counterstrategies and arguments to protect the public and policies from the vested interests of the food industry.
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