Effective government policies and their monitoring is key to improve food environments which enable healthy diets to reduce the risk of obesity, diet-related non-communicable disease (NCDs) and their related inequalities. Food environments are defined as the collective physical, economic, policy and socio-cultural surroundings, opportunities and conditions that influence people’s food and beverage choices and nutritional status. Unhealthy food environments lead to unhealthy diets and excess energy intake which increase the risk of morbidity and mortality. It is crucial that national governments implement policies that support healthy food environment for the prevention of obesity and NCDs. As recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO), monitoring the level of implementation of government policies and actions is important to ensure the progress towards better population health.

Food-EPI is an initiative of the INFORMAS Network (International Network for Food and Obesity/NCDs Research, Monitoring and Action Support) and its implementation in Sri Lanka will help identify, monitor, and benchmark food policies in comparison to international best practices. These actions are important to create food environments that foster healthy living and improve nutritional health for the prevention of obesity and non-communicable diseases.

One of the main drivers of the obesity epidemic has been identified as the food system which includes increased supply of cheap, palatable, energy dense foods; increased food mobility leading to increased distributions and convenience and more persuasive and pervasive food marketing. Monitoring the level of implementation of government food policies and benchmarking against international best practice is imperative for progress towards better nutritional health and to create food environments that foster healthy living and address the specific needs of vulnerable groups. Therefore, a joint effort by policy makers is necessary to implement and monitor effective policies that prevent a transition from undernutrition to overnutrition.

The Food-EPI tool consists of two components (Policies and Infrastructure Support), 13 domains and 47 good practice indicators. A national expert panel aims to rate the level of implementation of policies on food environments by the Government against international best practice, and then, based on the implementation gaps, propose, and prioritize key actions for implementation by the government.