Research Article Perspectives of Fijian Policymakers on the Obesity Prevention Policy Landscape

Copyright © 2015 Anna-Marie Hendriks et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. In Fiji and other Pacific Island countries, obesity has rapidly increased in the past decade. Therefore, several obesity prevention policies have been developed. Studies show that their development has been hampered by factors within Fiji’s policy landscape such as pressure from industry. Since policymakers in the Fijian national government are primarily responsible for the development of obesity policies, it is important to understand their perspectives; we therefore interviewed 15 policymakers from nine Fijian ministries. By applying the “attractor landscape ” metaphor from dynamic systems theory, we captured perceived barriers and facilitators in the policy landscape. A poor economic situation, low food self-sufficiency, power inequalities, inappropriate framing of obesity, limited policy evidence, and limited resource sharing hamper obesity policy developments in Fiji. Facilitators includ