Strategies

What Works for Health includes evidence-informed strategies to create communities where everyone can thrive.

13 Strategies
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Child-focused advertising restrictions for unhealthy foods & beverages

Restrict child-focused advertising for unhealthy foods and beverages via bans on unhealthy food and drink ads during children’s TV programs, product placement in children’s movies, etc.
Evidence Rating:
Some Evidence

Community Conditions

  • Diet and exercise

Societal Rules

  • Laws and policies

College-based obesity prevention educational interventions

Support multi-component educational interventions for college students that address nutrition, physical activity, and healthy weight management; often with environmental modifications
Evidence Rating:
Some Evidence

Community Conditions

  • Diet and exercise

Competitive pricing for healthy foods

Assign higher costs to non-nutritious foods than nutritious foods via incentives, subsidies, or price discounts for healthy foods and beverages or disincentives or price increases for unhealthy choices
Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported

Community Conditions

  • Diet and exercise
  • Climate

Societal Rules

  • Institutional practices

Exercise prescriptions

Provide patients with prescriptions for exercise plans, often accompanied by progress checks at office visits, counseling, activity logs, and exercise testing
Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported

Community Conditions

  • Diet and exercise

Financial rewards for employee healthy behavior

Offer payments, credits toward health insurance premiums, or other financial rewards to encourage employees to lose weight, eat more healthily, quit smoking, engage in physical activity, etc.
Evidence Rating:
Some Evidence

Community Conditions

  • Diet and exercise

Mass media campaigns for physical activity

Provide messages that support physical activity to large and broad audiences using television, social media, radio, billboards, newspapers, and other print media
Evidence Rating:
Insufficient Evidence

Community Conditions

  • Diet and exercise

Multi-component school-based obesity prevention interventions

Deliver educational, behavioral, environmental, and other obesity prevention efforts (e.g., education classes, enhanced physical education, healthy food promotion, family outreach, etc.) in schools
Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported

Community Conditions

  • Diet and exercise

School food & beverage restrictions

Limit access to competitive foods and beverages in schools via restrictions on foods that are not provided through the National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program.
Evidence Rating:
Some Evidence

Community Conditions

  • Diet and exercise

Societal Rules

  • Laws and policies

School fundraiser restrictions

Prohibit the sale of unhealthy foods such as sugar sweetened beverages, candy, and other non-nutritious snacks at school fundraisers, often as part of a broader nutrition policy
Evidence Rating:
Expert Opinion

Community Conditions

  • Diet and exercise

Societal Rules

  • Laws and policies

School-based physical education enhancements

Expand or enhance school-based physical education (PE) by lengthening existing classes, increasing physical activity during class, adding new PE classes, etc.
Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported

Community Conditions

  • Diet and exercise