Are there places in the world where changes in policy have resulted in healthier people? Policymakers should look to Finland. The people used to have a diet with high saturated fat and sodium consumption, and Finns had extremely high rates of heart disease. Now, however, policies encourage food producers to remove saturated fat from milk, and discourage them from marketing products with sodium levels. Now, the rate of heart disease in Finland is close to that of Italy, says Francesco Branca of the World Health Organization.

This conversation is part of a series called The Future of Food Policy. The conversations were conducted at Duke University as a part of the development of a new initiative, the World Food Policy Center.

• (Photo by Claudio.Ar, Flickr/CC)
• Music: Impromptu in Blue by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license.
• Artist: www.incompetech.com/
• Read the transcript