The EATWELL project is evaluating national policy campaigns launched by the Member States in order to promote and encourage healthy eating. In addition, it makes recommendations and appropriate interventions for Member States and the EU based on information gained from evaluations of policy interventions.

The EATWELL ('Interventions to promote healthy eating habits: evaluation and recommendations') project, which counts with partners from Belgium, Denmark, Italy, Poland, the United Kingdom and the United States, is investigating and identifying the successes, failures and uncertainties of national policy campaigns to promote healthy eating.

The EATWELL consortium is backed with €2.51 million under the 'Food, agriculture and fisheries, and biotechnology' (KBBE) Theme of the EU's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7). It has evaluated healthy eating policy actions, interviewed policymakers and industry actors, surveyed European citizens and carried out new data analysis. The team has identified more than 100 policy interventions in Europe, of which two are broad-based categories. Specifically, one targets support for more informed choice by offering information or education, such as the nutrition labelling campaign in the United Kingdom, and the other aims at changing the market environment by adjusting prices or food availability, namely giving vouchers to disadvantaged consumers or slapping taxes on high saturated fatty foods.

Project participants have observed a trend towards information and education actions that are less controversial compared to market-level interventions. Moreover, they agreed that the key component of the project has been to evaluate the acceptability of policies for different population sub-groups, like parents versus non-parents or education level, because only if people accept interventions can public health interventions be successful.