Transactions costs in rural decision-making: The cases of funding and monitoring in rural development in England

Public domain decisions in rural England have become more complex as the number of stakeholders having a say in them has increased. Transactions costs can be used to explore this increasing complexity. The size and distribution of these costs are higher in rural areas. Grouping transactions costs into four - organizations, belief systems, knowledge and information, and institutions - two of the latter are evaluated empirically: growth in the bid culture, and monitoring and evaluation. Amongst 65 Agents of Rural Governance (ARGs) in Gloucestershire, both were found to be increasing over time, but those relating to finance were a greater burden than those of monitoring: the latter can improve ARG performance. Increasing transactions costs in rural decision-making appears to be at variance with ambitions of achieving 'smaller government' through, for example, the Big Society. Smaller government is likely to be shifting the incidence of these costs, rather than reducing them. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

A kitchen-based intervention to improve nutritional intake from school lunches in children aged 12-16 years

Background: School lunches potentially provide an important source of nutrients for children but studies have shown that their food choices are not always associated with health benefits. This study aimed to evaluate the effects of a kitchen-based intervention on intake from school lunches. Method: The 3-phase study comprised a pre-intervention observation, the intervention itself and a post-intervention observation. Children aged 12-16 years attending a large, inner-city, secondary school in London were invited to participate. The intervention consisted of small, practical changes to the school menu with the purpose of reducing total and saturated fat and increasing fruit and vegetable consumption. Intake was evaluated using a weighed technique. Results: One hundred and eighty and 198 children participated in the pre- and post-intervention phases respectively. After the intervention, a significant reduction was observed in mean intake of total fat (44 ± 8 vs 40 ± 9 % total energy, P<0.01) and of saturated fat (13 ± 6 vs 10 ± 6 %, P<0.01). The children also ate significantly more fruit and vegetables (12.0 ± 10.4 vs 30.0 ± 30.5 g total weight, P<0.05). However after the intervention, the mean intakes of total and saturated fat, fruit and vegetables were still significantly below the Caroline Walker Trust guidelines for school lunches. Conclusion: The study showed that total and saturated fat and fruit and vegetable intake from school lunches can be significantly improved by a short, kitchen-based intervention. Although the benefits were limited, the results support further work in this area.Peer reviewe

The role of law in the control of obesity in England : looking at the contribution of law to a healthy food culture

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. This article is available from: http://www.anzhealthpolicy.com/content/5/1/21 DOI: 10.1186/1743-8462-5-21Obesity levels in England are significantly higher than in much of the rest of Europe. This article examines aspects of the physical and cultural context of food consumption in England, and the evolution of government policy on obesity, as a background to an analysis of how law might play a role in obesity prevention. Research suggests that individual food choices are associated with cultural and socio-economic circumstances and that they can be manipulated by advertising, food packaging and presentation. This suggests that there might be ways of using law to manage the influences on food choices, and of using law in support of strategies to redirect food choices towards healthy food products. Law is a particularly useful tool in the protection of the individual against the economic power of the food industry, and there is much that law can do to change the physical, economic and social environment of food consumption.Peer reviewe