• Put in place a food and nutrition programme for Roma and vulnerable school children.
• Implement specific national measures to take account of mechanisms of intergenerational poverty, as well as the need to support Roma children and their families in the four interrelated sectoral objectives (education, housing, healthcare and poverty reduction).
   

• 'Restrict access to less healthy foods and sweets on school premises' (universal intervention, applied to all SES strata).

• Encourage urban policy-makers to limit the density of fast food outlets and restaurants in disadvantaged areas and around schools.

Fiscal policies to address healthier choices

• Fiscal measures, such as sugars and sweet beverages (SSB) taxes and food subsidies are recognized as effective actions to address the economic determinants of obesity (WHO 2022) and health promotion in general (EC 2021).
• Government subsidies are also used to lower the costs associated with producing and consuming foods and beverages that are damaging to the health of our populations and planet (WHO 2022).

New trade regulatory framework to improve diet-related health

• Removing market barriers in the agricultural sectors in low- and middle-income countries to support cheaper and easier ways of moving core healthy products across borders.
• Protecting regulatory space for the implementation of policies that support populations to eat in a healthy and sustainable way in the face of competing trade and commercial interests.
• Revising subsidies to exclude harmful products (such as biofuels) and to provide better support for plant-based agricultural practices.

Encourage healthy choices

WHO 2014a  

• Provide free (where possible) or subsidized school lunches of a good quality.
• Increase the availability and accessibility of fruit, vegetable and other low-fat products, particularly in low-income areas, through initiatives such as community gardens and cooperatives. 

WHO 2014b

• Consider granting free entry to the local swimming pools and other recreational facilities for residents in low-income suburbs. 

WHO 2014b

• 'Restrict marketing of high-fat, -sugar and -salt foods and sugar-sweetened beverages to children'.
• Foster promotion of urban food initiatives, particularly in low-income areas (e.g. farmers’ markets, mobile vans selling fruit and vegetables, grocery collectives and community gardens and cooperatives). 

Public investments

WHO 2014a  

• Build urban environments that promote and enable safe and accessible physical activity by all groups
• Prioritize public investment in recreational facilities for disadvantaged areas.

Promoting mother's and women's health

• 'Increasing antenatal care attendance for socially deprived and young women by using participatory methods to address their needs and perceptions' to tackle inequalities in obesity from early on.
• Supporting skilled breastfeeding and complementary feeding, tailored to the specific needs of disadvantaged mothers with obesity, including teenagers, and their families.
• Implement targeted measures to make participation in physical activity more attractive to girls in schools', paying special attention to overweight adolescent girls, and addressing their self-esteem.
• Work with specific ethnic or immigrant groups to address barriers to physical activity in women.
• Employ peer mediators with diverse ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds, to provide counselling services and to facilitate mother-to-mother support groups. 

Guidelines for new initiatives

• The European Commission is systematically addressing health and other inequalities when assessing new policies (Better regulation toolbox). An assessment of direct and indirect effects on specific population sub-groups should be presented for any new initiative. 

Best Practices portal

• Best practices to reduce inequalities are collected in the repository of the Best Practice Portal of the European Commission website.