SHAPE Asia: a regional community of practice for transforming food environments

Rapidly changing Asian food environments characterized by increased availability of cheaper, energy-dense, and low-nutrient products, are negatively impacting nutritional and health outcomes. This paper introduces SHAPE Asia, a collaborative learning network of food environment interest-holders across Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka. These countries face significant regulatory challenges. Unregulated food marketing and retail practices promote unhealthy products resulting in adverse health impacts. Policymaking is hampered by insufficient political will, industry interference, and government sensitivity to perceived economic impacts of regulation compounded by inadequate public awareness and limited prioritization of sustained behavior change. Balancing economic and public health interests requires multifaceted, multisectoral approaches to ensure commitment toward healthier food environments. SHAPE Asia generates regionally-specific knowledge through shared learning to support double-duty food policy actions. It engages policymakers, academics, government agencies, international organizations, media, and civic organizations to ensure inclusive and equitable food environment transformation. It facilitates peer learning and South-South and North-South capacity building supporting healthy food environment advocacy. It translates research into action by strengthening coordinated efforts to develop feasible, effective, and sustainable policy options while building interest-holder support and generating policy-relevant evidence. SHAPE Asia is part of a global cohort of multi-actor coalitions influencing policies and transforming food systems across Central and South America, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. These coalitions combine collaborative learning networks and communities of practice to support production, consumption, and access to healthy diets, particularly for vulnerable populations, while emphasizing sustainable, gender-equitable, and inclusive systems contributing to the health of people and ecosystems.