Netherlands missing all preventive health targets: Too much smoking, alcohol, obesity

The Netherlands will miss all the preventive health targets set in the National Prevention Agreement for 2040, the public health institute RIVM said on Wednesday. While the numbers of smokers and overweight people are decreasing, it’s not enough to achieve the 2040 target. The number of people consuming problematic amounts of alcohol remains unchanged.

In 2018, the national government concluded the National Prevention Agreement with 70 social partners, agreeing on ways to work towards a healthier society by 2040. The main goals are to reduce smoking, problematic alcohol consumption, and overweight and obesity. The RIVM calculated what the situation would be in 2040 regarding these preventive health targets with and without these agreements.

According to the RIVM, there will be slightly fewer smokers in 2040 with the agreements than without, but not enough to meet the target of no more than 5% of adults smoking. With the agreements, approximately 10 percent of the adult Dutch population will be smokers in 2040, compared to around 13 percent without the agreements. Around 4 percent of 12 to 16-year-olds will smoke in 2040, while the target is no underage smokers.

The Netherlands also won’t achieve its goal of turning the increase in overweight people into a decrease, the RIVM said. The Prevention Agreement states that in 2040, a maximum of 38 percent of adults and 9.1 percent of children will be overweight. However, according to the RIVM, the best the Netherlands can do at this rate is 55 percent of adults (58 percent without the agreements) and 14 percent of children (15 percent without the agreements) being overweight in that year.

The National Prevention Agreement is having basically no effect on the number of people who consume problematic amounts of alcohol. This group will still be stable at around 8 percent in 2040, with or without the agreements. The goal was to reduce that to 5 percent.

“It is clear that to achieve the ambitions, additional and stronger measures are needed. Intensifying the current measures can also contribute,” the RIVM said. It suggested making healthy food cheaper, limiting the outlets for unhealthy food, and further limiting the advertising thereof. The RIVM also suggested making alcohol more expensive, less available, and limiting its advertising, too. Cigarettes could also become even pricier.