Table 1 Open in new tab Characteristics...

Table 1

Characteristics of the 48 included studies and key findings extracted for this review

Authors, year of publication	Study design	Target behaviour	Sample^a	Acceptability theme^b	Data collection method	Length^c	Details on data collection provided by the authors
Aarts et al. (2011)⁴²	Qualitative research	PA	Political: N = 25 policy officers	‘support’	Semi-structured face-to-face interviews	Ø 45 min	Open-ended questions about the current state municipalities regarding multi-sector policy action as well as opinions on facilitators and challenges for multi-sector policies. Support for the policy actions was determined based on the number of quotations in the transcripts (pooled for the four municipalities) about policies initiatives related to (the environmental determinants of) physical activity among children.
Alassaf et al. (2020)³⁴	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 1265	‘support’	Online survey	N = 1 item	One item rated on a two-point scale (‘yes’/‘no’): ‘Do you support the new policy mandating that restaurants display calories on their menus?’
Allender et al. (2012)⁴³	Qualitative research	Diet and PA	Political: N = 11 (key informants, e.g. Chief Executive Officer of a local council; two healthy programme coordinators)	‘support’	Semi-structured interviews	N = 3 questions	The following information was asked from respondents: ‘Which interventions from the list of nine possible policy areas were likely to be supported within local government?’ Authors also asked participants for any other policy areas not included on the list that they felt might be relevant. Participants were asked to provide their view of the policy situation throughout the state of Victoria and not simply their own local council.
Beeken et al. (2013)³⁵	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 1986 (adults)	‘support’	Computer-assisted, face-to-face omnibus survey	N = 5 items	Participants were asked to rate their level of agreement for different statements such as: ‘The government should restrict advertising and marketing of unhealthy foods’.
Belizan et al. (2019)⁵⁶	Mixed-method study	Diet and PA	Public: N = 250 (n = 206 survey; n = 44 interview)	‘acceptability’, no definition provided	(1) Semi-structured interviews, (2) Online survey	NA	Qualitative interviews used inductive inquiries consistent with the grounded theory approach.⁷¹ Themes identified: experience with implementing projects focusing on promoting physical activity and healthy diet; and key barriers and facilitators on designing, implementing and evaluating projects at the local level. Electronic survey contained both closed multiple response questions and open questions. Themes included were: experiences in projects related to the promotion of healthy habits over the last 5 years, barriers for projects ‘implementation, use of process and outcome measures for projects’ evaluation.
Bentley et al. (2015)⁴⁰	Qualitative research	PA (SB)	Public: N = 24 (mothers of preschool children)	‘attitudes’	Semi-structured interviews	43 min (mean; min: 23, max: 64)	Interview questions on attitudes towards the specific targets of the guidelines. Data analysed thematically using a framework approach.⁵¹
Bhawra et al. (2018)⁴⁵	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 2729	‘support’	Online survey	N = 21 items (n = 1 item per policy)	For each policy, participants were asked, ‘Would you support or oppose a government policy that would require [policy]?’ and had the option of selecting, ‘Support’, ‘Neutral’, ‘Oppose’, or ‘Don’t Know’.
Bleich et al. (2010)⁴⁷	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 663	‘perception’	Telephone survey	N = 8 Items (n = 6 caloric labelling in chain restaurants; n = 2 calorie posting legislation)	Item example: ‘Do you favour or oppose the government requiring chain restaurants, such as McDonalds or Subway, to post calorie information on menus or menu boards for each food item at the point of purchase?’
Carson et al. (2014)⁵⁷	Qualitative research	PA (SB)	Public: N = 27 (parents with a child under four years, who attended a child care centre)	‘perception’	Semi-structured focus groups	N = 6 questions	Questions: ‘What does sedentary behaviour mean to you? Is this definition similar/different than what you thought it was?’ ‘How clear are these guidelines?’ ‘What is your initial reaction to the guidelines? How do they make you feel as a parent (e.g. Irritated/Frustrated/Happy/Guilty)’ ‘Why do you think these guidelines are feasible/unfeasible or realistic/unrealistic?’ ‘The guideline sheet lists several health benefits for young children associated with meeting the guidelines. What are your thoughts about these statements? Do you agree or believe them?’ ‘From what source would you need this information from to consider it credible/trustworthy?’
Cradock et al. (2018)⁵⁸	Cross-sectional study	PA	Public: N = 906	‘support’	Telephone survey	N = 5 items, (n = 1 item per policy)	Item example: ‘Do you support funding for programs that encourage walking and bicycling to school?’ Response format: ‘Yes’/’No’
Curbach et al. (2018)⁵⁹	Cross-sectional study	PA	Public: N = 923 (delivery system actors: physicians and general practitioners)	‘attitudes’	Mail survey	N = 17 items	Questions focused on the respondents’ awareness and knowledge of the prevention scheme, prescribing behaviour, barriers to using the scheme, and on the physicians’ attitude towards patient counselling for physical activity and some socio-demographic items. Barrier items: For the barriers to using the scheme, the respondents could choose from a list of barriers to implementation and rate the relevance of these on a four-point Likert-scale.
Day et al. (2015)⁶⁰	Qualitative research	Diet	Public: N = 128 (n = 117 pupils; n = 6 catering managers; n = 5 heads of schools)	‘perception’, authors use ‘acceptability’ synonymously (no definition provided)	Semi-structured focus groups	20–40 min	The focus group topic schedule used semi-structured open-ended questions to guide discussion, for example: ‘What do you think about your school meals? (healthiness/quality/choice/quantity?)’
De la Cruz-Góngora et al. (2017)²¹	Qualitative research	Diet	Public: N = 135	‘perception’, authors use ‘acceptability’ synonymously (no definition provided)	Focus groups	Ø 75 min	Focus groups following thematic analysis: Food label acceptability has been operationalized as ‘liking it and confidence in it’
Emm et al. (2013)²⁶	Cross-sectional study	Diet and PA	Public: N = 188	‘support’	Online survey	N = 17 items (n = 7 for redistributive; n = 6 for compensatory and n = 4 for price-raising policies)	Participants were presented with descriptions of proposed obesity policies identified as having the largest potential impact on public health and which were politically feasible. Participants rated their agreement to the presented policy options via a seven-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 = ‘disagree strongly’ to 7 = ‘agree strongly’. The items were taken from a measure by Barry et al. (2009).⁷³ Reliability for the subscales: redistributive: α = 0.71; compensatory: α = 0.52; price raising: α = 0.77
Faulkner et al. (2016)⁴¹	Qualitative research	PA (SB)	Public: N = 104 (n = 18 students; n = 52 parents; n = 17 teachers; n = 5 paediatricians; n = 16 qualified exercise professionals)	‘perception’, authors use ‘acceptability’ synonymously (no definition provided)	Semi-structured focus group interviews	NA	Question example: ‘In the current case for example, do people perceive a need for 24-hour movement guidelines and are the recommendations perceived as relevant, achievable, and acceptable to their lives as a parent, qualified exercise professional, or paediatrician?’
Fitzgerald et al. (2018)⁶¹	Qualitative research	Diet	Public: N = 13 (managing directors, owners, head chefs and franchises)	‘attitudes’	Semi-structured interviews	40–60 min	Interviews focused on participants’ perceptions and experiences, potential barriers and facilitators surrounding the implementation of calorie menu labelling. A semi-structured topic guide was developed to allow for comparisons of experiences and attitudes in relation to calorie menu labelling. The topic guides took an inductive approach and allowed for unique insights and perspectives to emerge. Framework approach⁵¹ was used for data analysis.
Gase et al. (2015)⁴⁸	Cross-sectional study	PA (AT)	Public: N = 912 (registered voters in Los Angeles, CA, USA)	‘support’	Telephone survey	N = 31 items; 3–4 items per policy (n = 9)	Questions partially developed on already existing (Omnibus Household Survey, California Household Travel Survey), partially developed specifically for this study. Participants were asked whether they strongly supported, somewhat supported, somewhat opposed or strongly opposed ‘redirecting current federal, state or local transportation dollars’ to implement nine specific transportation improvements (increase traffic enforcement, develop more bike paths or lanes, etc.).
Hagmann et al. (2018)¹⁷	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 5238 (participants in the Swiss food panel)	‘acceptability’, definition provided: ‘how individuals feel and think about the implementation or continued existence of policies’²	Online survey	N = 8 items	Respondents were provided with a short introductory statement: ‘Given the overweight problem (in our society), a lot of measures have been proposed (in order to tackle it).’ They were then asked to indicate their acceptance of different specific measures (‘How do you rate the following strategies to reduce sugar consumption in the Swiss population?’). Each item was rated on a seven-point response scale ranging from 1 (‘do not agree at all’) to 7 (‘fully agree’).
Joyce et al. (2020)²⁰	Randomized cross-over trial	Diet	Public: N = 36 (school children, 6–9 years old)	‘acceptability’, no definition provided	Randomized cross-over trial	NA	A modified version of the United Stated Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Services, Child Nutrition Programs, Team Nutrition try-day taste-testing ballot was used.⁷⁴ Acceptability operationalized trough optics, taste fulfilment (satiation) and leftovers (plate waste weighing).
Julia et al. (2015)²⁵	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 1996	‘support’	Online survey	N = 7 items	Questionnaire items pertained to issues regarding acceptance of the tax (‘I support imposing a tax on sweetened beverages’, ‘I support imposing taxes on any and all foods and beverages which are bad for health’, ‘I support imposing a tax on sweetened beverages only if the money is then used to improve the health-care system’).
Jürkenbeck et al. (2020)²⁷	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 1035	‘support’	Online survey	N = 8 items	The participants had to evaluate statements about their general opinion regarding governmental interventions to support healthy eating behaviour, and statements about their own eating behaviour, using a five-point Likert scale ranging from + 2 (‘I totally agree’) to −2 (‘I do not agree at all’). Afterwards, various statements about specific policy interventions had to be evaluated on the same five-point Likert scale.
Kang et al. (2017)⁴⁶	Qualitative study	Diet and PA	Public: N = 11715 (twitter users)	‘opinions’	Textual analysis (of Twitter data)	N = 480 tweets	Acceptability was defined through opinion mining on tweets. Tweets were categorized as either positive, neutral or negative. The opinions of tweets were extracted using an unsupervised, lexicon-based approach. After calculating both a positive and a negative value of each tweet, the method compares the two values to determine the polarity of the overall opinion and level of intensity in the tweet. The approach employs a number of look-up tables such as Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count.⁷²
Kongats et al. (2019)²⁸	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public and political: N = 2702 (n = 2400 general public; n = 302 policy influencers)	‘support’, authors use ‘acceptability’ synonymously and refer to the review by Diepeveen et al.⁴	Online survey	N = 14 items	Participants were asked to rank their support for each policy via a four-point Likert scale. In total, 13 questions specific to policies promoting healthy eating were asked. The sample of policy influencers were asked to indicate their level of support for an additional 20 policy options on healthy eating. A binary variable for ‘support’ (combining strongly support with ‘somewhat support’ responses) vs. ‘opposition’ (combining ‘strongly oppose’ with ‘somewhat oppose’ responses) was created for the survey.
Kwon et al. (2019)²⁹	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 19857: (n = 3767 Australia, n = 3118 Canada, n = 4057 Mexico, n = 4047 UK, n = 4868 USA)	‘support’	Online survey	N = 13 items; (n = 1 item for each policy option)	Policy support measured via a three-point Likert scale. Item wording: ‘Would you support or oppose a government policy that would require…’ The scale consisted of ‘support’, ‘neutral’ and ‘oppose’. Additionally, participants could select ‘don't know’ or ‘refuse to answer’.
Le Roux et al. (2021)⁶²	Cross-sectional study	Diet and PA	Public: N = 341 (students participating in the public health service programme)	‘satisfaction’	Paper survey	N = 14 items	‘Satisfaction questionnaire’, the scale consisted of ‘agree’ and ‘disagree’ or ‘yes’ and ‘no’.
Mathews et al. (2010)³⁹	Cross-sectional study	PA	Political: N = 311 (n = 99 district officials; n = 215 principals)	‘attitudes’	Web-based and paper surveys	N = 18 items	‘School Travel Survey’ for district officials: http://prevention.sph.sc.edu/projects/Travel%20survey-District.pdf and school principals: http://prevention.sph.sc.edu/projects/Travel%20survey-Principals.pdf. Respondents were asked if they currently support local efforts to encourage walking to school and what type of impact walking can have on students’ health and academic performance.
Micheelsen et al. (2014)⁶³	Randomized controlled trial	Diet	Public: N = 147 (n = 91 ‘New Nordic Diet’, n = 56 ‘Average Danish Diet’)	‘acceptability’, no definition provided	Question-naire	N = 14 items, 7 for each policy dimension (n = 2)	Acceptability measured as ‘practical acceptance’ and ‘eating acceptance’: The practical acceptance index consisted of all items in dimensions (1) ‘preparation of diet’ (e.g. ‘diet is easy to cook’) and (5) ‘continuation with the diet after the intervention’ (e.g. ‘It will not be too expensive to stay on my diet after the intervention’), together with one item from dimension (3) ‘everyday life and diet’ (e.g. ‘Following my diet does not require a lot of planning’). The eating acceptance index was made up of the remaining items in dimension (3) (e.g. ‘My diet fits nicely with my everyday life.’) along with all items in (2) ‘consumption and diet’ (e.g. ‘My diet is tasty’) and (4) ‘wellbeing and diet’ (e.g. ‘Eating my diet has given me energy’).
Milford et al. (2019)⁴⁴	Mixed-methods study	Diet	Public: N = 2858 (n = 10 military kitchen staff; n = 2848 soldiers)	‘attitudes’	(1) Interviews and (2) paper-based question-naire	Interviews: NA Survey: N = 4 items	Qualitative interviews with kitchen staff on implementation of Meatless Monday: The topics the participants emphasized during the interviews were: relevance of targeting meat, knowledge, decision-making processes and soldiers’ attitudes. Quantitative survey on soldier attitudes to vegetarian food: ‘Reducing meat consumption is an efficient environmental measure’, ‘A high level of meat consumption is harmful to health’, ‘A well-balanced vegetarian diet contains all the nutrients the body needs’ and ‘Animal welfare is important to me’.
Morley et al. (2012)³⁰	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 1511	‘acceptability’, no definition provided	Phone Interviews	N = 18 items (n = 3 food labelling, n = 3 taxation, n = 1 product reformulation, n = 11 marketing)	Participants gave their opinions on food labelling, product reformulation, taxation and marketing through the use of Likert scales and close-ended questions. Participants were asked whether they were in favour of a number of policy practices and give their answer mostly using a five-point Likert scale. Some items instead used a three-point Likert scale (‘not regulate’/‘restrict’/‘stop this practice completely’). Some items also presented a selection of options from which participants were able to select their answer.
Nathan et al. (2011)³⁶	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 384 (delivery system actors: school principals and deputy assistant principals)	‘attitudes’	Computer Assisted Telephone Interview	20 min	Principals were asked to respond on a four-point Likert scale (1 = ‘strongly agree’ to 4 = ‘strongly disagree’), whether they felt that it is part of a school’s role to provide an environment which encourages healthy eating; that it is appropriate for schools to implement vegetable and fruit breaks and that vegetable and fruit breaks do not take away too much time from other educational priorities in the classroom or are disruptive to classroom routine.
Nguyen et al. (2015)⁴⁹	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 256 (educators)	‘perception’	Self-administered structured questio-nnaire	N = 3 items	Experts in the development of the food based dietary guidelines and primary-school-based interventions were involved in the development process of the questionnaire. The questionnaire was piloted at two schools and modified to enhance its validity before being used for the main study.
Odom et al. (2017)²³	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 7845 (2012: n = 3926; 2015: n = 3919)	‘attitudes’	Online survey	N = 6 items (n = 3 items per policy)	Questions on sodium in restaurants and manufactured foods: A five-point Likert scale was used to record responses: 1 = ‘strongly disagree’; 2 = ‘somewhat disagree’; 3 = ‘neither agree nor disagree’; 4 = ‘moderately agree’; and 5 = ‘strongly agree’, Responses of one, two and three were grouped together and termed ‘neutral/disagree’. Responses of four and five were grouped together and termed ‘agree’. Questions on sodium in school cafeterias, workplace cafeterias and quick-serve restaurants: A four-point Likert scale was used to record responses: 1 = ‘strongly oppose’; 2 = ‘slightly oppose’; 3 = ‘slightly support’; 4 = ‘strongly support’. Responses of one and two were grouped together and termed ‘neutral/not support’, and responses of three and four were collapsed into ‘support’.
Payán et al. (2017)⁵⁵	Qualitative research	Diet	Public: N = 64 (high school students, 14-19 years old)	‘acceptability’, no definition provided	Focus groups	N = 6 questions	Focus group questions: ‘Where do you regularly eat lunch on a normal school day? Why?’ ‘About how often do you eat in your school cafeteria in a week? Why?’ ‘What types of changes have you noticed in your school cafeteria compared to previous years (if any)?’ ‘What do you think about these changes?’ ‘What do you like about your school’s cafeteria?’ [Probe: ‘What kinds of cafeteria foods do you like? Why?’] ‘What do you not like about your school’s cafeteria?’ [Probe: ‘What kinds of cafeteria foods do you not like? Why?’] ‘Describe ways to improve your school cafeteria and the meals served’.
Pell et al. (2019)³⁸	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 3104 (participants of International Food Policy Study)	‘support’	Online survey	N = 1 item	Single-item measure for support of the policy: ‘In 2018 a new sugary drink tax will be introduced in the UK. This aims to encourage manufacturers to reduce the sugar in drinks. The money will be spent on breakfast clubs, and sports in primary schools. Do you support or oppose this policy?’
Pettigrew et al. (2019)²⁴	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 607 (2008 survey; school staff members from 699 schools) N = 307 (2016 survey; school staff members from 798 schools)	‘attitudes’	Online survey	NA	Respondents were asked to report their attitudes to a range of potential policy extensions and their preferences for various forms of support that would enable them to effectively implement an enhanced version of the policy (rated on a five-point scale from ‘strongly disagree’ to ‘strongly agree’).
Regan et al. (2016)³¹	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public N = 501	‘perspective’	Online survey	N = 13 items (one item for each policy)	Participants were asked to rate the level of importance that they felt the Irish government should assign to 13 different salt reduction policies. The assessed policies spanned government-industry cooperation, educational measures, restrictions on salt content of foods, labelling and fiscal measures. Each item was scored on a scale of one (‘not at all important’) to five (‘extremely important’).
Reynolds et al. (2019)¹⁸	Randomized controlled trial	Diet	Public: N = 7058	‘acceptability’ used, definition provided: ‘how individuals feel and think about the implementtation or continued existence of policies’.²	Online survey	N = 3 items	Acceptability of the policy was assessed using three items (α = 0.97; c.f⁷⁵): ‘How acceptable do you find the policy?; How much are you in favour of the new policy being introduced?; Do you support or oppose the new policy?’. Each item was rated on a seven-point scale, labelled at either end (‘strongly oppose’; ‘strongly support’).
Riazi et al. (2017)³²	Qualitative research	PA (SB)	Public: N = 10 (stakeholders: physicians) N = 92 (end users: parents)	‘impressions’, ‘acceptability’ used synonymously (no definition provided)	(1) Interview, (2) Focus groups	(1) 25–47 min (2) N = 6 discussion questions	(1) Interviews with stakeholders (experts in paediatric and family medicine, physical activity knowledge translation and research) and (2) Focus groups with end users (parents and early childhood educators). Both groups engaged in open-ended discussions about their first impressions of the Movement Guidelines, the clarity of the guidelines, and the need for an integrated guideline (e.g. ‘Do you find these integrated guidelines helpful or not helpful?’).
Richards et al. (2011)⁶⁵	Qualitative research	PA (AT)	Public: N = 2784 (submissions from 16 councils)	‘support’	Textual analysis (of submissions to city council annual plans)	N = 2784 submissions	Analysis of submissions to city council annual plans related to active transport: All submissions were reviewed and categories of responses were created, for city, year, type of respondent, transport mode, what they were asking for and the reasons given for the request (e.g. health or sustainability).
Rida et al. (2019)⁶⁶	Mixed-methods study	Diet	Public N = 15	‘attitudes’	Structured focus groups	N = 13 questions	Questions were developed to describe the nutrition knowledge of school food-personnel and the school food environment, contextualize attitudes and strategies of school food-personnel towards offering healthy school meals and barriers to face in offering and serving healthy meals. These questions were presented in two focus group sessions.
Robles et al. (2017)³⁷	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 1007	‘support’	Telephone survey	N = 9 items	Policy support was measured through a series of questions adapted from prior local obesity-related public opinion surveys carried out by Field Research in the Los Angeles region. Participants were questioned about their views on incentivizing/promotional policies and practices, limiting/restrictive policies and practices and changing business practices. All questions were close-ended. Participants selected their answers from a short list of possible alternatives.
Rydell et al. (2018)⁶⁷	Randomized controlled trial	Diet	Public: N = 265 (participants eligible/nearly eligible for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program)	‘satisfaction’	Online survey	N = 4 items	Participants received a questionnaire with four close-ended questions to assess satisfaction with various elements of the programme via an anchored six-point Likert scale.
Signal et al. (2018)²²	Qualitative research	Diet	Public and political: N = 22 (n = 3 politicians; n = 4 bureaucrats; n = 7 public health experts; n = 5 food industry leaders; n = 3 consumer representatives)	‘acceptability’, no definition provided	Key informant interview method⁵²	N = 11 semi-structured interview questions	Question example: ‘Thinking about the next 5–10 years how acceptable is a New Zealand [tax/subsidy] likely to be to key stakeholders and why?’ Prompts: ‘Starting with (your sector). What about other key stakeholders like the public, politicians from various parties, the food industry, public health groups (e.g. Heart Foundation)’.
Swift et al. (2018)⁶⁸	Qualitative research	Diet	Public: N = 412 (online forum users) N = 618 twitter accounts (n = 213 private accounts; n = 206 health-related organizations; n = 171 non-health-related organizations; n = 28 educational organizations)	‘perception’	Textual analysis (of online forum posts and tweets)	N = 412 (online forum posts) N = 618 (tweets)	Textual analysis of digital spaces: Study two examined posts on online forums about the Soft Drinks Industry Levy. Posts were categorized as either positive or negative. Study three examined tweets about the Sugar Smart app, likewise categorized as positive or negative.
Thomas-Meyer et al. (2017)⁶⁹	Qualitative research	Diet	Public: N = 1158 online readers	‘support’	Textual analysis (of online comments on news articles)	N = 1645 comments	Thematic analysis of online reader comments using framework method.⁵¹ Analysis of public commenting on popular news websites in relation to SSB taxes. Comments were categorized as negative or positive, positive indicating support.
Turner-McGrievy et al. (2014)⁷⁰	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 71 (parents of children at a university-based childcare facility)	‘support’	Online survey	N = 37 items (referring to different aspects of the program)	Items assessing support for menu changes and support for adding more meatless entrée on a nine-point Likert Scale (1 being ‘not supportive’ and 9 being ‘supportive’). and open-ended questions to receive comments/opinions. Item example: ‘Below are the proposed nutrition standards for centres enrolled in South Carolina’s ABC program. Please rate your support for this change on a scale of 1 to 9 (1 being not supportive and 9 being supportive)’. In addition, parents were asked about their support for a centre-specific policy of only bringing healthy snacks for classroom celebrations.
Vargas-Meza et al. (2019)¹⁹	Randomized controlled trial	Diet	Public: N = 2105 (n = 697 Guideline Daily Allowances; n = 708 Warning Labels; n = 700 Multiple Traffic Lights)	‘acceptability’, based on theoretical framework by Grunert and Wills⁷⁶	Online survey	N = 10 items (n = 3 likability; n = 4 attractiveness; n = 3 cognitive workload)	Label acceptability was evaluated using three indicators: likability, attractiveness and perceived cognitive workload, based on the framework of system acceptability by Nielsen.⁵⁰ A questionnaire with ten statements was used to assess acceptability. Questions were answered by the participants using a five-point Likert scale.
Yun et al. (2018)³³	Cross-sectional study	PA (SB and AT)	Public: N = 2519	‘support’	Online survey	NA	Aspects assessed: Individual responsibility for behaviours (e.g. providing programs to educate or motivate the general public about the importance of regular physical activity), modifying community environments (e.g. the quantity and quality of green spaces, safe areas for physical activity, and the design of neighbourhoods to encourage informal physical activity), targeting legislative changes to modify the environment (e.g. banning all traffic in high-use pedestrian areas during peak hours to support active or public transportation and restricting the use of elevators for trips to lower floors), focusing on economic levers (e.g. incentives, subsidies and tax credits).

Authors, year of publication	Study design	Target behaviour	Sample^a	Acceptability theme^b	Data collection method	Length^c	Details on data collection provided by the authors
Aarts et al. (2011)⁴²	Qualitative research	PA	Political: N = 25 policy officers	‘support’	Semi-structured face-to-face interviews	Ø 45 min	Open-ended questions about the current state municipalities regarding multi-sector policy action as well as opinions on facilitators and challenges for multi-sector policies. Support for the policy actions was determined based on the number of quotations in the transcripts (pooled for the four municipalities) about policies initiatives related to (the environmental determinants of) physical activity among children.
Alassaf et al. (2020)³⁴	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 1265	‘support’	Online survey	N = 1 item	One item rated on a two-point scale (‘yes’/‘no’): ‘Do you support the new policy mandating that restaurants display calories on their menus?’
Allender et al. (2012)⁴³	Qualitative research	Diet and PA	Political: N = 11 (key informants, e.g. Chief Executive Officer of a local council; two healthy programme coordinators)	‘support’	Semi-structured interviews	N = 3 questions	The following information was asked from respondents: ‘Which interventions from the list of nine possible policy areas were likely to be supported within local government?’ Authors also asked participants for any other policy areas not included on the list that they felt might be relevant. Participants were asked to provide their view of the policy situation throughout the state of Victoria and not simply their own local council.
Beeken et al. (2013)³⁵	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 1986 (adults)	‘support’	Computer-assisted, face-to-face omnibus survey	N = 5 items	Participants were asked to rate their level of agreement for different statements such as: ‘The government should restrict advertising and marketing of unhealthy foods’.
Belizan et al. (2019)⁵⁶	Mixed-method study	Diet and PA	Public: N = 250 (n = 206 survey; n = 44 interview)	‘acceptability’, no definition provided	(1) Semi-structured interviews, (2) Online survey	NA	Qualitative interviews used inductive inquiries consistent with the grounded theory approach.⁷¹ Themes identified: experience with implementing projects focusing on promoting physical activity and healthy diet; and key barriers and facilitators on designing, implementing and evaluating projects at the local level. Electronic survey contained both closed multiple response questions and open questions. Themes included were: experiences in projects related to the promotion of healthy habits over the last 5 years, barriers for projects ‘implementation, use of process and outcome measures for projects’ evaluation.
Bentley et al. (2015)⁴⁰	Qualitative research	PA (SB)	Public: N = 24 (mothers of preschool children)	‘attitudes’	Semi-structured interviews	43 min (mean; min: 23, max: 64)	Interview questions on attitudes towards the specific targets of the guidelines. Data analysed thematically using a framework approach.⁵¹
Bhawra et al. (2018)⁴⁵	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 2729	‘support’	Online survey	N = 21 items (n = 1 item per policy)	For each policy, participants were asked, ‘Would you support or oppose a government policy that would require [policy]?’ and had the option of selecting, ‘Support’, ‘Neutral’, ‘Oppose’, or ‘Don’t Know’.
Bleich et al. (2010)⁴⁷	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 663	‘perception’	Telephone survey	N = 8 Items (n = 6 caloric labelling in chain restaurants; n = 2 calorie posting legislation)	Item example: ‘Do you favour or oppose the government requiring chain restaurants, such as McDonalds or Subway, to post calorie information on menus or menu boards for each food item at the point of purchase?’
Carson et al. (2014)⁵⁷	Qualitative research	PA (SB)	Public: N = 27 (parents with a child under four years, who attended a child care centre)	‘perception’	Semi-structured focus groups	N = 6 questions	Questions: ‘What does sedentary behaviour mean to you? Is this definition similar/different than what you thought it was?’ ‘How clear are these guidelines?’ ‘What is your initial reaction to the guidelines? How do they make you feel as a parent (e.g. Irritated/Frustrated/Happy/Guilty)’ ‘Why do you think these guidelines are feasible/unfeasible or realistic/unrealistic?’ ‘The guideline sheet lists several health benefits for young children associated with meeting the guidelines. What are your thoughts about these statements? Do you agree or believe them?’ ‘From what source would you need this information from to consider it credible/trustworthy?’
Cradock et al. (2018)⁵⁸	Cross-sectional study	PA	Public: N = 906	‘support’	Telephone survey	N = 5 items, (n = 1 item per policy)	Item example: ‘Do you support funding for programs that encourage walking and bicycling to school?’ Response format: ‘Yes’/’No’
Curbach et al. (2018)⁵⁹	Cross-sectional study	PA	Public: N = 923 (delivery system actors: physicians and general practitioners)	‘attitudes’	Mail survey	N = 17 items	Questions focused on the respondents’ awareness and knowledge of the prevention scheme, prescribing behaviour, barriers to using the scheme, and on the physicians’ attitude towards patient counselling for physical activity and some socio-demographic items. Barrier items: For the barriers to using the scheme, the respondents could choose from a list of barriers to implementation and rate the relevance of these on a four-point Likert-scale.
Day et al. (2015)⁶⁰	Qualitative research	Diet	Public: N = 128 (n = 117 pupils; n = 6 catering managers; n = 5 heads of schools)	‘perception’, authors use ‘acceptability’ synonymously (no definition provided)	Semi-structured focus groups	20–40 min	The focus group topic schedule used semi-structured open-ended questions to guide discussion, for example: ‘What do you think about your school meals? (healthiness/quality/choice/quantity?)’
De la Cruz-Góngora et al. (2017)²¹	Qualitative research	Diet	Public: N = 135	‘perception’, authors use ‘acceptability’ synonymously (no definition provided)	Focus groups	Ø 75 min	Focus groups following thematic analysis: Food label acceptability has been operationalized as ‘liking it and confidence in it’
Emm et al. (2013)²⁶	Cross-sectional study	Diet and PA	Public: N = 188	‘support’	Online survey	N = 17 items (n = 7 for redistributive; n = 6 for compensatory and n = 4 for price-raising policies)	Participants were presented with descriptions of proposed obesity policies identified as having the largest potential impact on public health and which were politically feasible. Participants rated their agreement to the presented policy options via a seven-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 = ‘disagree strongly’ to 7 = ‘agree strongly’. The items were taken from a measure by Barry et al. (2009).⁷³ Reliability for the subscales: redistributive: α = 0.71; compensatory: α = 0.52; price raising: α = 0.77
Faulkner et al. (2016)⁴¹	Qualitative research	PA (SB)	Public: N = 104 (n = 18 students; n = 52 parents; n = 17 teachers; n = 5 paediatricians; n = 16 qualified exercise professionals)	‘perception’, authors use ‘acceptability’ synonymously (no definition provided)	Semi-structured focus group interviews	NA	Question example: ‘In the current case for example, do people perceive a need for 24-hour movement guidelines and are the recommendations perceived as relevant, achievable, and acceptable to their lives as a parent, qualified exercise professional, or paediatrician?’
Fitzgerald et al. (2018)⁶¹	Qualitative research	Diet	Public: N = 13 (managing directors, owners, head chefs and franchises)	‘attitudes’	Semi-structured interviews	40–60 min	Interviews focused on participants’ perceptions and experiences, potential barriers and facilitators surrounding the implementation of calorie menu labelling. A semi-structured topic guide was developed to allow for comparisons of experiences and attitudes in relation to calorie menu labelling. The topic guides took an inductive approach and allowed for unique insights and perspectives to emerge. Framework approach⁵¹ was used for data analysis.
Gase et al. (2015)⁴⁸	Cross-sectional study	PA (AT)	Public: N = 912 (registered voters in Los Angeles, CA, USA)	‘support’	Telephone survey	N = 31 items; 3–4 items per policy (n = 9)	Questions partially developed on already existing (Omnibus Household Survey, California Household Travel Survey), partially developed specifically for this study. Participants were asked whether they strongly supported, somewhat supported, somewhat opposed or strongly opposed ‘redirecting current federal, state or local transportation dollars’ to implement nine specific transportation improvements (increase traffic enforcement, develop more bike paths or lanes, etc.).
Hagmann et al. (2018)¹⁷	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 5238 (participants in the Swiss food panel)	‘acceptability’, definition provided: ‘how individuals feel and think about the implementation or continued existence of policies’²	Online survey	N = 8 items	Respondents were provided with a short introductory statement: ‘Given the overweight problem (in our society), a lot of measures have been proposed (in order to tackle it).’ They were then asked to indicate their acceptance of different specific measures (‘How do you rate the following strategies to reduce sugar consumption in the Swiss population?’). Each item was rated on a seven-point response scale ranging from 1 (‘do not agree at all’) to 7 (‘fully agree’).
Joyce et al. (2020)²⁰	Randomized cross-over trial	Diet	Public: N = 36 (school children, 6–9 years old)	‘acceptability’, no definition provided	Randomized cross-over trial	NA	A modified version of the United Stated Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Services, Child Nutrition Programs, Team Nutrition try-day taste-testing ballot was used.⁷⁴ Acceptability operationalized trough optics, taste fulfilment (satiation) and leftovers (plate waste weighing).
Julia et al. (2015)²⁵	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 1996	‘support’	Online survey	N = 7 items	Questionnaire items pertained to issues regarding acceptance of the tax (‘I support imposing a tax on sweetened beverages’, ‘I support imposing taxes on any and all foods and beverages which are bad for health’, ‘I support imposing a tax on sweetened beverages only if the money is then used to improve the health-care system’).
Jürkenbeck et al. (2020)²⁷	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 1035	‘support’	Online survey	N = 8 items	The participants had to evaluate statements about their general opinion regarding governmental interventions to support healthy eating behaviour, and statements about their own eating behaviour, using a five-point Likert scale ranging from + 2 (‘I totally agree’) to −2 (‘I do not agree at all’). Afterwards, various statements about specific policy interventions had to be evaluated on the same five-point Likert scale.
Kang et al. (2017)⁴⁶	Qualitative study	Diet and PA	Public: N = 11715 (twitter users)	‘opinions’	Textual analysis (of Twitter data)	N = 480 tweets	Acceptability was defined through opinion mining on tweets. Tweets were categorized as either positive, neutral or negative. The opinions of tweets were extracted using an unsupervised, lexicon-based approach. After calculating both a positive and a negative value of each tweet, the method compares the two values to determine the polarity of the overall opinion and level of intensity in the tweet. The approach employs a number of look-up tables such as Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count.⁷²
Kongats et al. (2019)²⁸	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public and political: N = 2702 (n = 2400 general public; n = 302 policy influencers)	‘support’, authors use ‘acceptability’ synonymously and refer to the review by Diepeveen et al.⁴	Online survey	N = 14 items	Participants were asked to rank their support for each policy via a four-point Likert scale. In total, 13 questions specific to policies promoting healthy eating were asked. The sample of policy influencers were asked to indicate their level of support for an additional 20 policy options on healthy eating. A binary variable for ‘support’ (combining strongly support with ‘somewhat support’ responses) vs. ‘opposition’ (combining ‘strongly oppose’ with ‘somewhat oppose’ responses) was created for the survey.
Kwon et al. (2019)²⁹	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 19857: (n = 3767 Australia, n = 3118 Canada, n = 4057 Mexico, n = 4047 UK, n = 4868 USA)	‘support’	Online survey	N = 13 items; (n = 1 item for each policy option)	Policy support measured via a three-point Likert scale. Item wording: ‘Would you support or oppose a government policy that would require…’ The scale consisted of ‘support’, ‘neutral’ and ‘oppose’. Additionally, participants could select ‘don't know’ or ‘refuse to answer’.
Le Roux et al. (2021)⁶²	Cross-sectional study	Diet and PA	Public: N = 341 (students participating in the public health service programme)	‘satisfaction’	Paper survey	N = 14 items	‘Satisfaction questionnaire’, the scale consisted of ‘agree’ and ‘disagree’ or ‘yes’ and ‘no’.
Mathews et al. (2010)³⁹	Cross-sectional study	PA	Political: N = 311 (n = 99 district officials; n = 215 principals)	‘attitudes’	Web-based and paper surveys	N = 18 items	‘School Travel Survey’ for district officials: http://prevention.sph.sc.edu/projects/Travel%20survey-District.pdf and school principals: http://prevention.sph.sc.edu/projects/Travel%20survey-Principals.pdf. Respondents were asked if they currently support local efforts to encourage walking to school and what type of impact walking can have on students’ health and academic performance.
Micheelsen et al. (2014)⁶³	Randomized controlled trial	Diet	Public: N = 147 (n = 91 ‘New Nordic Diet’, n = 56 ‘Average Danish Diet’)	‘acceptability’, no definition provided	Question-naire	N = 14 items, 7 for each policy dimension (n = 2)	Acceptability measured as ‘practical acceptance’ and ‘eating acceptance’: The practical acceptance index consisted of all items in dimensions (1) ‘preparation of diet’ (e.g. ‘diet is easy to cook’) and (5) ‘continuation with the diet after the intervention’ (e.g. ‘It will not be too expensive to stay on my diet after the intervention’), together with one item from dimension (3) ‘everyday life and diet’ (e.g. ‘Following my diet does not require a lot of planning’). The eating acceptance index was made up of the remaining items in dimension (3) (e.g. ‘My diet fits nicely with my everyday life.’) along with all items in (2) ‘consumption and diet’ (e.g. ‘My diet is tasty’) and (4) ‘wellbeing and diet’ (e.g. ‘Eating my diet has given me energy’).
Milford et al. (2019)⁴⁴	Mixed-methods study	Diet	Public: N = 2858 (n = 10 military kitchen staff; n = 2848 soldiers)	‘attitudes’	(1) Interviews and (2) paper-based question-naire	Interviews: NA Survey: N = 4 items	Qualitative interviews with kitchen staff on implementation of Meatless Monday: The topics the participants emphasized during the interviews were: relevance of targeting meat, knowledge, decision-making processes and soldiers’ attitudes. Quantitative survey on soldier attitudes to vegetarian food: ‘Reducing meat consumption is an efficient environmental measure’, ‘A high level of meat consumption is harmful to health’, ‘A well-balanced vegetarian diet contains all the nutrients the body needs’ and ‘Animal welfare is important to me’.
Morley et al. (2012)³⁰	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 1511	‘acceptability’, no definition provided	Phone Interviews	N = 18 items (n = 3 food labelling, n = 3 taxation, n = 1 product reformulation, n = 11 marketing)	Participants gave their opinions on food labelling, product reformulation, taxation and marketing through the use of Likert scales and close-ended questions. Participants were asked whether they were in favour of a number of policy practices and give their answer mostly using a five-point Likert scale. Some items instead used a three-point Likert scale (‘not regulate’/‘restrict’/‘stop this practice completely’). Some items also presented a selection of options from which participants were able to select their answer.
Nathan et al. (2011)³⁶	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 384 (delivery system actors: school principals and deputy assistant principals)	‘attitudes’	Computer Assisted Telephone Interview	20 min	Principals were asked to respond on a four-point Likert scale (1 = ‘strongly agree’ to 4 = ‘strongly disagree’), whether they felt that it is part of a school’s role to provide an environment which encourages healthy eating; that it is appropriate for schools to implement vegetable and fruit breaks and that vegetable and fruit breaks do not take away too much time from other educational priorities in the classroom or are disruptive to classroom routine.
Nguyen et al. (2015)⁴⁹	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 256 (educators)	‘perception’	Self-administered structured questio-nnaire	N = 3 items	Experts in the development of the food based dietary guidelines and primary-school-based interventions were involved in the development process of the questionnaire. The questionnaire was piloted at two schools and modified to enhance its validity before being used for the main study.
Odom et al. (2017)²³	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 7845 (2012: n = 3926; 2015: n = 3919)	‘attitudes’	Online survey	N = 6 items (n = 3 items per policy)	Questions on sodium in restaurants and manufactured foods: A five-point Likert scale was used to record responses: 1 = ‘strongly disagree’; 2 = ‘somewhat disagree’; 3 = ‘neither agree nor disagree’; 4 = ‘moderately agree’; and 5 = ‘strongly agree’, Responses of one, two and three were grouped together and termed ‘neutral/disagree’. Responses of four and five were grouped together and termed ‘agree’. Questions on sodium in school cafeterias, workplace cafeterias and quick-serve restaurants: A four-point Likert scale was used to record responses: 1 = ‘strongly oppose’; 2 = ‘slightly oppose’; 3 = ‘slightly support’; 4 = ‘strongly support’. Responses of one and two were grouped together and termed ‘neutral/not support’, and responses of three and four were collapsed into ‘support’.
Payán et al. (2017)⁵⁵	Qualitative research	Diet	Public: N = 64 (high school students, 14-19 years old)	‘acceptability’, no definition provided	Focus groups	N = 6 questions	Focus group questions: ‘Where do you regularly eat lunch on a normal school day? Why?’ ‘About how often do you eat in your school cafeteria in a week? Why?’ ‘What types of changes have you noticed in your school cafeteria compared to previous years (if any)?’ ‘What do you think about these changes?’ ‘What do you like about your school’s cafeteria?’ [Probe: ‘What kinds of cafeteria foods do you like? Why?’] ‘What do you not like about your school’s cafeteria?’ [Probe: ‘What kinds of cafeteria foods do you not like? Why?’] ‘Describe ways to improve your school cafeteria and the meals served’.
Pell et al. (2019)³⁸	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 3104 (participants of International Food Policy Study)	‘support’	Online survey	N = 1 item	Single-item measure for support of the policy: ‘In 2018 a new sugary drink tax will be introduced in the UK. This aims to encourage manufacturers to reduce the sugar in drinks. The money will be spent on breakfast clubs, and sports in primary schools. Do you support or oppose this policy?’
Pettigrew et al. (2019)²⁴	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 607 (2008 survey; school staff members from 699 schools) N = 307 (2016 survey; school staff members from 798 schools)	‘attitudes’	Online survey	NA	Respondents were asked to report their attitudes to a range of potential policy extensions and their preferences for various forms of support that would enable them to effectively implement an enhanced version of the policy (rated on a five-point scale from ‘strongly disagree’ to ‘strongly agree’).
Regan et al. (2016)³¹	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public N = 501	‘perspective’	Online survey	N = 13 items (one item for each policy)	Participants were asked to rate the level of importance that they felt the Irish government should assign to 13 different salt reduction policies. The assessed policies spanned government-industry cooperation, educational measures, restrictions on salt content of foods, labelling and fiscal measures. Each item was scored on a scale of one (‘not at all important’) to five (‘extremely important’).
Reynolds et al. (2019)¹⁸	Randomized controlled trial	Diet	Public: N = 7058	‘acceptability’ used, definition provided: ‘how individuals feel and think about the implementtation or continued existence of policies’.²	Online survey	N = 3 items	Acceptability of the policy was assessed using three items (α = 0.97; c.f⁷⁵): ‘How acceptable do you find the policy?; How much are you in favour of the new policy being introduced?; Do you support or oppose the new policy?’. Each item was rated on a seven-point scale, labelled at either end (‘strongly oppose’; ‘strongly support’).
Riazi et al. (2017)³²	Qualitative research	PA (SB)	Public: N = 10 (stakeholders: physicians) N = 92 (end users: parents)	‘impressions’, ‘acceptability’ used synonymously (no definition provided)	(1) Interview, (2) Focus groups	(1) 25–47 min (2) N = 6 discussion questions	(1) Interviews with stakeholders (experts in paediatric and family medicine, physical activity knowledge translation and research) and (2) Focus groups with end users (parents and early childhood educators). Both groups engaged in open-ended discussions about their first impressions of the Movement Guidelines, the clarity of the guidelines, and the need for an integrated guideline (e.g. ‘Do you find these integrated guidelines helpful or not helpful?’).
Richards et al. (2011)⁶⁵	Qualitative research	PA (AT)	Public: N = 2784 (submissions from 16 councils)	‘support’	Textual analysis (of submissions to city council annual plans)	N = 2784 submissions	Analysis of submissions to city council annual plans related to active transport: All submissions were reviewed and categories of responses were created, for city, year, type of respondent, transport mode, what they were asking for and the reasons given for the request (e.g. health or sustainability).
Rida et al. (2019)⁶⁶	Mixed-methods study	Diet	Public N = 15	‘attitudes’	Structured focus groups	N = 13 questions	Questions were developed to describe the nutrition knowledge of school food-personnel and the school food environment, contextualize attitudes and strategies of school food-personnel towards offering healthy school meals and barriers to face in offering and serving healthy meals. These questions were presented in two focus group sessions.
Robles et al. (2017)³⁷	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 1007	‘support’	Telephone survey	N = 9 items	Policy support was measured through a series of questions adapted from prior local obesity-related public opinion surveys carried out by Field Research in the Los Angeles region. Participants were questioned about their views on incentivizing/promotional policies and practices, limiting/restrictive policies and practices and changing business practices. All questions were close-ended. Participants selected their answers from a short list of possible alternatives.
Rydell et al. (2018)⁶⁷	Randomized controlled trial	Diet	Public: N = 265 (participants eligible/nearly eligible for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program)	‘satisfaction’	Online survey	N = 4 items	Participants received a questionnaire with four close-ended questions to assess satisfaction with various elements of the programme via an anchored six-point Likert scale.
Signal et al. (2018)²²	Qualitative research	Diet	Public and political: N = 22 (n = 3 politicians; n = 4 bureaucrats; n = 7 public health experts; n = 5 food industry leaders; n = 3 consumer representatives)	‘acceptability’, no definition provided	Key informant interview method⁵²	N = 11 semi-structured interview questions	Question example: ‘Thinking about the next 5–10 years how acceptable is a New Zealand [tax/subsidy] likely to be to key stakeholders and why?’ Prompts: ‘Starting with (your sector). What about other key stakeholders like the public, politicians from various parties, the food industry, public health groups (e.g. Heart Foundation)’.
Swift et al. (2018)⁶⁸	Qualitative research	Diet	Public: N = 412 (online forum users) N = 618 twitter accounts (n = 213 private accounts; n = 206 health-related organizations; n = 171 non-health-related organizations; n = 28 educational organizations)	‘perception’	Textual analysis (of online forum posts and tweets)	N = 412 (online forum posts) N = 618 (tweets)	Textual analysis of digital spaces: Study two examined posts on online forums about the Soft Drinks Industry Levy. Posts were categorized as either positive or negative. Study three examined tweets about the Sugar Smart app, likewise categorized as positive or negative.
Thomas-Meyer et al. (2017)⁶⁹	Qualitative research	Diet	Public: N = 1158 online readers	‘support’	Textual analysis (of online comments on news articles)	N = 1645 comments	Thematic analysis of online reader comments using framework method.⁵¹ Analysis of public commenting on popular news websites in relation to SSB taxes. Comments were categorized as negative or positive, positive indicating support.
Turner-McGrievy et al. (2014)⁷⁰	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 71 (parents of children at a university-based childcare facility)	‘support’	Online survey	N = 37 items (referring to different aspects of the program)	Items assessing support for menu changes and support for adding more meatless entrée on a nine-point Likert Scale (1 being ‘not supportive’ and 9 being ‘supportive’). and open-ended questions to receive comments/opinions. Item example: ‘Below are the proposed nutrition standards for centres enrolled in South Carolina’s ABC program. Please rate your support for this change on a scale of 1 to 9 (1 being not supportive and 9 being supportive)’. In addition, parents were asked about their support for a centre-specific policy of only bringing healthy snacks for classroom celebrations.
Vargas-Meza et al. (2019)¹⁹	Randomized controlled trial	Diet	Public: N = 2105 (n = 697 Guideline Daily Allowances; n = 708 Warning Labels; n = 700 Multiple Traffic Lights)	‘acceptability’, based on theoretical framework by Grunert and Wills⁷⁶	Online survey	N = 10 items (n = 3 likability; n = 4 attractiveness; n = 3 cognitive workload)	Label acceptability was evaluated using three indicators: likability, attractiveness and perceived cognitive workload, based on the framework of system acceptability by Nielsen.⁵⁰ A questionnaire with ten statements was used to assess acceptability. Questions were answered by the participants using a five-point Likert scale.
Yun et al. (2018)³³	Cross-sectional study	PA (SB and AT)	Public: N = 2519	‘support’	Online survey	NA	Aspects assessed: Individual responsibility for behaviours (e.g. providing programs to educate or motivate the general public about the importance of regular physical activity), modifying community environments (e.g. the quantity and quality of green spaces, safe areas for physical activity, and the design of neighbourhoods to encourage informal physical activity), targeting legislative changes to modify the environment (e.g. banning all traffic in high-use pedestrian areas during peak hours to support active or public transportation and restricting the use of elevators for trips to lower floors), focusing on economic levers (e.g. incentives, subsidies and tax credits).

Political, any individuals involved in the decision-making process (e.g. policy-makers, politicians and informants from ministries); public, any individuals potentially affected by an SSBs tax (i.e. the public).

Acceptability theme: aspects relating to acceptability in the study.

Length refers to Item/Questions aiming at acceptability(-related concepts).

AT, active transport; Diet, dietary behaviour; NA, not available; PA, physical activity; SB, sedentary behaviour.

Table 1

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Characteristics of the 48 included studies and key findings extracted for this review

Authors, year of publication	Study design	Target behaviour	Sample^a	Acceptability theme^b	Data collection method	Length^c	Details on data collection provided by the authors
Aarts et al. (2011)⁴²	Qualitative research	PA	Political: N = 25 policy officers	‘support’	Semi-structured face-to-face interviews	Ø 45 min	Open-ended questions about the current state municipalities regarding multi-sector policy action as well as opinions on facilitators and challenges for multi-sector policies. Support for the policy actions was determined based on the number of quotations in the transcripts (pooled for the four municipalities) about policies initiatives related to (the environmental determinants of) physical activity among children.
Alassaf et al. (2020)³⁴	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 1265	‘support’	Online survey	N = 1 item	One item rated on a two-point scale (‘yes’/‘no’): ‘Do you support the new policy mandating that restaurants display calories on their menus?’
Allender et al. (2012)⁴³	Qualitative research	Diet and PA	Political: N = 11 (key informants, e.g. Chief Executive Officer of a local council; two healthy programme coordinators)	‘support’	Semi-structured interviews	N = 3 questions	The following information was asked from respondents: ‘Which interventions from the list of nine possible policy areas were likely to be supported within local government?’ Authors also asked participants for any other policy areas not included on the list that they felt might be relevant. Participants were asked to provide their view of the policy situation throughout the state of Victoria and not simply their own local council.
Beeken et al. (2013)³⁵	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 1986 (adults)	‘support’	Computer-assisted, face-to-face omnibus survey	N = 5 items	Participants were asked to rate their level of agreement for different statements such as: ‘The government should restrict advertising and marketing of unhealthy foods’.
Belizan et al. (2019)⁵⁶	Mixed-method study	Diet and PA	Public: N = 250 (n = 206 survey; n = 44 interview)	‘acceptability’, no definition provided	(1) Semi-structured interviews, (2) Online survey	NA	Qualitative interviews used inductive inquiries consistent with the grounded theory approach.⁷¹ Themes identified: experience with implementing projects focusing on promoting physical activity and healthy diet; and key barriers and facilitators on designing, implementing and evaluating projects at the local level. Electronic survey contained both closed multiple response questions and open questions. Themes included were: experiences in projects related to the promotion of healthy habits over the last 5 years, barriers for projects ‘implementation, use of process and outcome measures for projects’ evaluation.
Bentley et al. (2015)⁴⁰	Qualitative research	PA (SB)	Public: N = 24 (mothers of preschool children)	‘attitudes’	Semi-structured interviews	43 min (mean; min: 23, max: 64)	Interview questions on attitudes towards the specific targets of the guidelines. Data analysed thematically using a framework approach.⁵¹
Bhawra et al. (2018)⁴⁵	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 2729	‘support’	Online survey	N = 21 items (n = 1 item per policy)	For each policy, participants were asked, ‘Would you support or oppose a government policy that would require [policy]?’ and had the option of selecting, ‘Support’, ‘Neutral’, ‘Oppose’, or ‘Don’t Know’.
Bleich et al. (2010)⁴⁷	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 663	‘perception’	Telephone survey	N = 8 Items (n = 6 caloric labelling in chain restaurants; n = 2 calorie posting legislation)	Item example: ‘Do you favour or oppose the government requiring chain restaurants, such as McDonalds or Subway, to post calorie information on menus or menu boards for each food item at the point of purchase?’
Carson et al. (2014)⁵⁷	Qualitative research	PA (SB)	Public: N = 27 (parents with a child under four years, who attended a child care centre)	‘perception’	Semi-structured focus groups	N = 6 questions	Questions: ‘What does sedentary behaviour mean to you? Is this definition similar/different than what you thought it was?’ ‘How clear are these guidelines?’ ‘What is your initial reaction to the guidelines? How do they make you feel as a parent (e.g. Irritated/Frustrated/Happy/Guilty)’ ‘Why do you think these guidelines are feasible/unfeasible or realistic/unrealistic?’ ‘The guideline sheet lists several health benefits for young children associated with meeting the guidelines. What are your thoughts about these statements? Do you agree or believe them?’ ‘From what source would you need this information from to consider it credible/trustworthy?’
Cradock et al. (2018)⁵⁸	Cross-sectional study	PA	Public: N = 906	‘support’	Telephone survey	N = 5 items, (n = 1 item per policy)	Item example: ‘Do you support funding for programs that encourage walking and bicycling to school?’ Response format: ‘Yes’/’No’
Curbach et al. (2018)⁵⁹	Cross-sectional study	PA	Public: N = 923 (delivery system actors: physicians and general practitioners)	‘attitudes’	Mail survey	N = 17 items	Questions focused on the respondents’ awareness and knowledge of the prevention scheme, prescribing behaviour, barriers to using the scheme, and on the physicians’ attitude towards patient counselling for physical activity and some socio-demographic items. Barrier items: For the barriers to using the scheme, the respondents could choose from a list of barriers to implementation and rate the relevance of these on a four-point Likert-scale.
Day et al. (2015)⁶⁰	Qualitative research	Diet	Public: N = 128 (n = 117 pupils; n = 6 catering managers; n = 5 heads of schools)	‘perception’, authors use ‘acceptability’ synonymously (no definition provided)	Semi-structured focus groups	20–40 min	The focus group topic schedule used semi-structured open-ended questions to guide discussion, for example: ‘What do you think about your school meals? (healthiness/quality/choice/quantity?)’
De la Cruz-Góngora et al. (2017)²¹	Qualitative research	Diet	Public: N = 135	‘perception’, authors use ‘acceptability’ synonymously (no definition provided)	Focus groups	Ø 75 min	Focus groups following thematic analysis: Food label acceptability has been operationalized as ‘liking it and confidence in it’
Emm et al. (2013)²⁶	Cross-sectional study	Diet and PA	Public: N = 188	‘support’	Online survey	N = 17 items (n = 7 for redistributive; n = 6 for compensatory and n = 4 for price-raising policies)	Participants were presented with descriptions of proposed obesity policies identified as having the largest potential impact on public health and which were politically feasible. Participants rated their agreement to the presented policy options via a seven-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 = ‘disagree strongly’ to 7 = ‘agree strongly’. The items were taken from a measure by Barry et al. (2009).⁷³ Reliability for the subscales: redistributive: α = 0.71; compensatory: α = 0.52; price raising: α = 0.77
Faulkner et al. (2016)⁴¹	Qualitative research	PA (SB)	Public: N = 104 (n = 18 students; n = 52 parents; n = 17 teachers; n = 5 paediatricians; n = 16 qualified exercise professionals)	‘perception’, authors use ‘acceptability’ synonymously (no definition provided)	Semi-structured focus group interviews	NA	Question example: ‘In the current case for example, do people perceive a need for 24-hour movement guidelines and are the recommendations perceived as relevant, achievable, and acceptable to their lives as a parent, qualified exercise professional, or paediatrician?’
Fitzgerald et al. (2018)⁶¹	Qualitative research	Diet	Public: N = 13 (managing directors, owners, head chefs and franchises)	‘attitudes’	Semi-structured interviews	40–60 min	Interviews focused on participants’ perceptions and experiences, potential barriers and facilitators surrounding the implementation of calorie menu labelling. A semi-structured topic guide was developed to allow for comparisons of experiences and attitudes in relation to calorie menu labelling. The topic guides took an inductive approach and allowed for unique insights and perspectives to emerge. Framework approach⁵¹ was used for data analysis.
Gase et al. (2015)⁴⁸	Cross-sectional study	PA (AT)	Public: N = 912 (registered voters in Los Angeles, CA, USA)	‘support’	Telephone survey	N = 31 items; 3–4 items per policy (n = 9)	Questions partially developed on already existing (Omnibus Household Survey, California Household Travel Survey), partially developed specifically for this study. Participants were asked whether they strongly supported, somewhat supported, somewhat opposed or strongly opposed ‘redirecting current federal, state or local transportation dollars’ to implement nine specific transportation improvements (increase traffic enforcement, develop more bike paths or lanes, etc.).
Hagmann et al. (2018)¹⁷	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 5238 (participants in the Swiss food panel)	‘acceptability’, definition provided: ‘how individuals feel and think about the implementation or continued existence of policies’²	Online survey	N = 8 items	Respondents were provided with a short introductory statement: ‘Given the overweight problem (in our society), a lot of measures have been proposed (in order to tackle it).’ They were then asked to indicate their acceptance of different specific measures (‘How do you rate the following strategies to reduce sugar consumption in the Swiss population?’). Each item was rated on a seven-point response scale ranging from 1 (‘do not agree at all’) to 7 (‘fully agree’).
Joyce et al. (2020)²⁰	Randomized cross-over trial	Diet	Public: N = 36 (school children, 6–9 years old)	‘acceptability’, no definition provided	Randomized cross-over trial	NA	A modified version of the United Stated Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Services, Child Nutrition Programs, Team Nutrition try-day taste-testing ballot was used.⁷⁴ Acceptability operationalized trough optics, taste fulfilment (satiation) and leftovers (plate waste weighing).
Julia et al. (2015)²⁵	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 1996	‘support’	Online survey	N = 7 items	Questionnaire items pertained to issues regarding acceptance of the tax (‘I support imposing a tax on sweetened beverages’, ‘I support imposing taxes on any and all foods and beverages which are bad for health’, ‘I support imposing a tax on sweetened beverages only if the money is then used to improve the health-care system’).
Jürkenbeck et al. (2020)²⁷	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 1035	‘support’	Online survey	N = 8 items	The participants had to evaluate statements about their general opinion regarding governmental interventions to support healthy eating behaviour, and statements about their own eating behaviour, using a five-point Likert scale ranging from + 2 (‘I totally agree’) to −2 (‘I do not agree at all’). Afterwards, various statements about specific policy interventions had to be evaluated on the same five-point Likert scale.
Kang et al. (2017)⁴⁶	Qualitative study	Diet and PA	Public: N = 11715 (twitter users)	‘opinions’	Textual analysis (of Twitter data)	N = 480 tweets	Acceptability was defined through opinion mining on tweets. Tweets were categorized as either positive, neutral or negative. The opinions of tweets were extracted using an unsupervised, lexicon-based approach. After calculating both a positive and a negative value of each tweet, the method compares the two values to determine the polarity of the overall opinion and level of intensity in the tweet. The approach employs a number of look-up tables such as Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count.⁷²
Kongats et al. (2019)²⁸	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public and political: N = 2702 (n = 2400 general public; n = 302 policy influencers)	‘support’, authors use ‘acceptability’ synonymously and refer to the review by Diepeveen et al.⁴	Online survey	N = 14 items	Participants were asked to rank their support for each policy via a four-point Likert scale. In total, 13 questions specific to policies promoting healthy eating were asked. The sample of policy influencers were asked to indicate their level of support for an additional 20 policy options on healthy eating. A binary variable for ‘support’ (combining strongly support with ‘somewhat support’ responses) vs. ‘opposition’ (combining ‘strongly oppose’ with ‘somewhat oppose’ responses) was created for the survey.
Kwon et al. (2019)²⁹	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 19857: (n = 3767 Australia, n = 3118 Canada, n = 4057 Mexico, n = 4047 UK, n = 4868 USA)	‘support’	Online survey	N = 13 items; (n = 1 item for each policy option)	Policy support measured via a three-point Likert scale. Item wording: ‘Would you support or oppose a government policy that would require…’ The scale consisted of ‘support’, ‘neutral’ and ‘oppose’. Additionally, participants could select ‘don't know’ or ‘refuse to answer’.
Le Roux et al. (2021)⁶²	Cross-sectional study	Diet and PA	Public: N = 341 (students participating in the public health service programme)	‘satisfaction’	Paper survey	N = 14 items	‘Satisfaction questionnaire’, the scale consisted of ‘agree’ and ‘disagree’ or ‘yes’ and ‘no’.
Mathews et al. (2010)³⁹	Cross-sectional study	PA	Political: N = 311 (n = 99 district officials; n = 215 principals)	‘attitudes’	Web-based and paper surveys	N = 18 items	‘School Travel Survey’ for district officials: http://prevention.sph.sc.edu/projects/Travel%20survey-District.pdf and school principals: http://prevention.sph.sc.edu/projects/Travel%20survey-Principals.pdf. Respondents were asked if they currently support local efforts to encourage walking to school and what type of impact walking can have on students’ health and academic performance.
Micheelsen et al. (2014)⁶³	Randomized controlled trial	Diet	Public: N = 147 (n = 91 ‘New Nordic Diet’, n = 56 ‘Average Danish Diet’)	‘acceptability’, no definition provided	Question-naire	N = 14 items, 7 for each policy dimension (n = 2)	Acceptability measured as ‘practical acceptance’ and ‘eating acceptance’: The practical acceptance index consisted of all items in dimensions (1) ‘preparation of diet’ (e.g. ‘diet is easy to cook’) and (5) ‘continuation with the diet after the intervention’ (e.g. ‘It will not be too expensive to stay on my diet after the intervention’), together with one item from dimension (3) ‘everyday life and diet’ (e.g. ‘Following my diet does not require a lot of planning’). The eating acceptance index was made up of the remaining items in dimension (3) (e.g. ‘My diet fits nicely with my everyday life.’) along with all items in (2) ‘consumption and diet’ (e.g. ‘My diet is tasty’) and (4) ‘wellbeing and diet’ (e.g. ‘Eating my diet has given me energy’).
Milford et al. (2019)⁴⁴	Mixed-methods study	Diet	Public: N = 2858 (n = 10 military kitchen staff; n = 2848 soldiers)	‘attitudes’	(1) Interviews and (2) paper-based question-naire	Interviews: NA Survey: N = 4 items	Qualitative interviews with kitchen staff on implementation of Meatless Monday: The topics the participants emphasized during the interviews were: relevance of targeting meat, knowledge, decision-making processes and soldiers’ attitudes. Quantitative survey on soldier attitudes to vegetarian food: ‘Reducing meat consumption is an efficient environmental measure’, ‘A high level of meat consumption is harmful to health’, ‘A well-balanced vegetarian diet contains all the nutrients the body needs’ and ‘Animal welfare is important to me’.
Morley et al. (2012)³⁰	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 1511	‘acceptability’, no definition provided	Phone Interviews	N = 18 items (n = 3 food labelling, n = 3 taxation, n = 1 product reformulation, n = 11 marketing)	Participants gave their opinions on food labelling, product reformulation, taxation and marketing through the use of Likert scales and close-ended questions. Participants were asked whether they were in favour of a number of policy practices and give their answer mostly using a five-point Likert scale. Some items instead used a three-point Likert scale (‘not regulate’/‘restrict’/‘stop this practice completely’). Some items also presented a selection of options from which participants were able to select their answer.
Nathan et al. (2011)³⁶	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 384 (delivery system actors: school principals and deputy assistant principals)	‘attitudes’	Computer Assisted Telephone Interview	20 min	Principals were asked to respond on a four-point Likert scale (1 = ‘strongly agree’ to 4 = ‘strongly disagree’), whether they felt that it is part of a school’s role to provide an environment which encourages healthy eating; that it is appropriate for schools to implement vegetable and fruit breaks and that vegetable and fruit breaks do not take away too much time from other educational priorities in the classroom or are disruptive to classroom routine.
Nguyen et al. (2015)⁴⁹	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 256 (educators)	‘perception’	Self-administered structured questio-nnaire	N = 3 items	Experts in the development of the food based dietary guidelines and primary-school-based interventions were involved in the development process of the questionnaire. The questionnaire was piloted at two schools and modified to enhance its validity before being used for the main study.
Odom et al. (2017)²³	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 7845 (2012: n = 3926; 2015: n = 3919)	‘attitudes’	Online survey	N = 6 items (n = 3 items per policy)	Questions on sodium in restaurants and manufactured foods: A five-point Likert scale was used to record responses: 1 = ‘strongly disagree’; 2 = ‘somewhat disagree’; 3 = ‘neither agree nor disagree’; 4 = ‘moderately agree’; and 5 = ‘strongly agree’, Responses of one, two and three were grouped together and termed ‘neutral/disagree’. Responses of four and five were grouped together and termed ‘agree’. Questions on sodium in school cafeterias, workplace cafeterias and quick-serve restaurants: A four-point Likert scale was used to record responses: 1 = ‘strongly oppose’; 2 = ‘slightly oppose’; 3 = ‘slightly support’; 4 = ‘strongly support’. Responses of one and two were grouped together and termed ‘neutral/not support’, and responses of three and four were collapsed into ‘support’.
Payán et al. (2017)⁵⁵	Qualitative research	Diet	Public: N = 64 (high school students, 14-19 years old)	‘acceptability’, no definition provided	Focus groups	N = 6 questions	Focus group questions: ‘Where do you regularly eat lunch on a normal school day? Why?’ ‘About how often do you eat in your school cafeteria in a week? Why?’ ‘What types of changes have you noticed in your school cafeteria compared to previous years (if any)?’ ‘What do you think about these changes?’ ‘What do you like about your school’s cafeteria?’ [Probe: ‘What kinds of cafeteria foods do you like? Why?’] ‘What do you not like about your school’s cafeteria?’ [Probe: ‘What kinds of cafeteria foods do you not like? Why?’] ‘Describe ways to improve your school cafeteria and the meals served’.
Pell et al. (2019)³⁸	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 3104 (participants of International Food Policy Study)	‘support’	Online survey	N = 1 item	Single-item measure for support of the policy: ‘In 2018 a new sugary drink tax will be introduced in the UK. This aims to encourage manufacturers to reduce the sugar in drinks. The money will be spent on breakfast clubs, and sports in primary schools. Do you support or oppose this policy?’
Pettigrew et al. (2019)²⁴	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 607 (2008 survey; school staff members from 699 schools) N = 307 (2016 survey; school staff members from 798 schools)	‘attitudes’	Online survey	NA	Respondents were asked to report their attitudes to a range of potential policy extensions and their preferences for various forms of support that would enable them to effectively implement an enhanced version of the policy (rated on a five-point scale from ‘strongly disagree’ to ‘strongly agree’).
Regan et al. (2016)³¹	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public N = 501	‘perspective’	Online survey	N = 13 items (one item for each policy)	Participants were asked to rate the level of importance that they felt the Irish government should assign to 13 different salt reduction policies. The assessed policies spanned government-industry cooperation, educational measures, restrictions on salt content of foods, labelling and fiscal measures. Each item was scored on a scale of one (‘not at all important’) to five (‘extremely important’).
Reynolds et al. (2019)¹⁸	Randomized controlled trial	Diet	Public: N = 7058	‘acceptability’ used, definition provided: ‘how individuals feel and think about the implementtation or continued existence of policies’.²	Online survey	N = 3 items	Acceptability of the policy was assessed using three items (α = 0.97; c.f⁷⁵): ‘How acceptable do you find the policy?; How much are you in favour of the new policy being introduced?; Do you support or oppose the new policy?’. Each item was rated on a seven-point scale, labelled at either end (‘strongly oppose’; ‘strongly support’).
Riazi et al. (2017)³²	Qualitative research	PA (SB)	Public: N = 10 (stakeholders: physicians) N = 92 (end users: parents)	‘impressions’, ‘acceptability’ used synonymously (no definition provided)	(1) Interview, (2) Focus groups	(1) 25–47 min (2) N = 6 discussion questions	(1) Interviews with stakeholders (experts in paediatric and family medicine, physical activity knowledge translation and research) and (2) Focus groups with end users (parents and early childhood educators). Both groups engaged in open-ended discussions about their first impressions of the Movement Guidelines, the clarity of the guidelines, and the need for an integrated guideline (e.g. ‘Do you find these integrated guidelines helpful or not helpful?’).
Richards et al. (2011)⁶⁵	Qualitative research	PA (AT)	Public: N = 2784 (submissions from 16 councils)	‘support’	Textual analysis (of submissions to city council annual plans)	N = 2784 submissions	Analysis of submissions to city council annual plans related to active transport: All submissions were reviewed and categories of responses were created, for city, year, type of respondent, transport mode, what they were asking for and the reasons given for the request (e.g. health or sustainability).
Rida et al. (2019)⁶⁶	Mixed-methods study	Diet	Public N = 15	‘attitudes’	Structured focus groups	N = 13 questions	Questions were developed to describe the nutrition knowledge of school food-personnel and the school food environment, contextualize attitudes and strategies of school food-personnel towards offering healthy school meals and barriers to face in offering and serving healthy meals. These questions were presented in two focus group sessions.
Robles et al. (2017)³⁷	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 1007	‘support’	Telephone survey	N = 9 items	Policy support was measured through a series of questions adapted from prior local obesity-related public opinion surveys carried out by Field Research in the Los Angeles region. Participants were questioned about their views on incentivizing/promotional policies and practices, limiting/restrictive policies and practices and changing business practices. All questions were close-ended. Participants selected their answers from a short list of possible alternatives.
Rydell et al. (2018)⁶⁷	Randomized controlled trial	Diet	Public: N = 265 (participants eligible/nearly eligible for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program)	‘satisfaction’	Online survey	N = 4 items	Participants received a questionnaire with four close-ended questions to assess satisfaction with various elements of the programme via an anchored six-point Likert scale.
Signal et al. (2018)²²	Qualitative research	Diet	Public and political: N = 22 (n = 3 politicians; n = 4 bureaucrats; n = 7 public health experts; n = 5 food industry leaders; n = 3 consumer representatives)	‘acceptability’, no definition provided	Key informant interview method⁵²	N = 11 semi-structured interview questions	Question example: ‘Thinking about the next 5–10 years how acceptable is a New Zealand [tax/subsidy] likely to be to key stakeholders and why?’ Prompts: ‘Starting with (your sector). What about other key stakeholders like the public, politicians from various parties, the food industry, public health groups (e.g. Heart Foundation)’.
Swift et al. (2018)⁶⁸	Qualitative research	Diet	Public: N = 412 (online forum users) N = 618 twitter accounts (n = 213 private accounts; n = 206 health-related organizations; n = 171 non-health-related organizations; n = 28 educational organizations)	‘perception’	Textual analysis (of online forum posts and tweets)	N = 412 (online forum posts) N = 618 (tweets)	Textual analysis of digital spaces: Study two examined posts on online forums about the Soft Drinks Industry Levy. Posts were categorized as either positive or negative. Study three examined tweets about the Sugar Smart app, likewise categorized as positive or negative.
Thomas-Meyer et al. (2017)⁶⁹	Qualitative research	Diet	Public: N = 1158 online readers	‘support’	Textual analysis (of online comments on news articles)	N = 1645 comments	Thematic analysis of online reader comments using framework method.⁵¹ Analysis of public commenting on popular news websites in relation to SSB taxes. Comments were categorized as negative or positive, positive indicating support.
Turner-McGrievy et al. (2014)⁷⁰	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 71 (parents of children at a university-based childcare facility)	‘support’	Online survey	N = 37 items (referring to different aspects of the program)	Items assessing support for menu changes and support for adding more meatless entrée on a nine-point Likert Scale (1 being ‘not supportive’ and 9 being ‘supportive’). and open-ended questions to receive comments/opinions. Item example: ‘Below are the proposed nutrition standards for centres enrolled in South Carolina’s ABC program. Please rate your support for this change on a scale of 1 to 9 (1 being not supportive and 9 being supportive)’. In addition, parents were asked about their support for a centre-specific policy of only bringing healthy snacks for classroom celebrations.
Vargas-Meza et al. (2019)¹⁹	Randomized controlled trial	Diet	Public: N = 2105 (n = 697 Guideline Daily Allowances; n = 708 Warning Labels; n = 700 Multiple Traffic Lights)	‘acceptability’, based on theoretical framework by Grunert and Wills⁷⁶	Online survey	N = 10 items (n = 3 likability; n = 4 attractiveness; n = 3 cognitive workload)	Label acceptability was evaluated using three indicators: likability, attractiveness and perceived cognitive workload, based on the framework of system acceptability by Nielsen.⁵⁰ A questionnaire with ten statements was used to assess acceptability. Questions were answered by the participants using a five-point Likert scale.
Yun et al. (2018)³³	Cross-sectional study	PA (SB and AT)	Public: N = 2519	‘support’	Online survey	NA	Aspects assessed: Individual responsibility for behaviours (e.g. providing programs to educate or motivate the general public about the importance of regular physical activity), modifying community environments (e.g. the quantity and quality of green spaces, safe areas for physical activity, and the design of neighbourhoods to encourage informal physical activity), targeting legislative changes to modify the environment (e.g. banning all traffic in high-use pedestrian areas during peak hours to support active or public transportation and restricting the use of elevators for trips to lower floors), focusing on economic levers (e.g. incentives, subsidies and tax credits).

Authors, year of publication	Study design	Target behaviour	Sample^a	Acceptability theme^b	Data collection method	Length^c	Details on data collection provided by the authors
Aarts et al. (2011)⁴²	Qualitative research	PA	Political: N = 25 policy officers	‘support’	Semi-structured face-to-face interviews	Ø 45 min	Open-ended questions about the current state municipalities regarding multi-sector policy action as well as opinions on facilitators and challenges for multi-sector policies. Support for the policy actions was determined based on the number of quotations in the transcripts (pooled for the four municipalities) about policies initiatives related to (the environmental determinants of) physical activity among children.
Alassaf et al. (2020)³⁴	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 1265	‘support’	Online survey	N = 1 item	One item rated on a two-point scale (‘yes’/‘no’): ‘Do you support the new policy mandating that restaurants display calories on their menus?’
Allender et al. (2012)⁴³	Qualitative research	Diet and PA	Political: N = 11 (key informants, e.g. Chief Executive Officer of a local council; two healthy programme coordinators)	‘support’	Semi-structured interviews	N = 3 questions	The following information was asked from respondents: ‘Which interventions from the list of nine possible policy areas were likely to be supported within local government?’ Authors also asked participants for any other policy areas not included on the list that they felt might be relevant. Participants were asked to provide their view of the policy situation throughout the state of Victoria and not simply their own local council.
Beeken et al. (2013)³⁵	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 1986 (adults)	‘support’	Computer-assisted, face-to-face omnibus survey	N = 5 items	Participants were asked to rate their level of agreement for different statements such as: ‘The government should restrict advertising and marketing of unhealthy foods’.
Belizan et al. (2019)⁵⁶	Mixed-method study	Diet and PA	Public: N = 250 (n = 206 survey; n = 44 interview)	‘acceptability’, no definition provided	(1) Semi-structured interviews, (2) Online survey	NA	Qualitative interviews used inductive inquiries consistent with the grounded theory approach.⁷¹ Themes identified: experience with implementing projects focusing on promoting physical activity and healthy diet; and key barriers and facilitators on designing, implementing and evaluating projects at the local level. Electronic survey contained both closed multiple response questions and open questions. Themes included were: experiences in projects related to the promotion of healthy habits over the last 5 years, barriers for projects ‘implementation, use of process and outcome measures for projects’ evaluation.
Bentley et al. (2015)⁴⁰	Qualitative research	PA (SB)	Public: N = 24 (mothers of preschool children)	‘attitudes’	Semi-structured interviews	43 min (mean; min: 23, max: 64)	Interview questions on attitudes towards the specific targets of the guidelines. Data analysed thematically using a framework approach.⁵¹
Bhawra et al. (2018)⁴⁵	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 2729	‘support’	Online survey	N = 21 items (n = 1 item per policy)	For each policy, participants were asked, ‘Would you support or oppose a government policy that would require [policy]?’ and had the option of selecting, ‘Support’, ‘Neutral’, ‘Oppose’, or ‘Don’t Know’.
Bleich et al. (2010)⁴⁷	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 663	‘perception’	Telephone survey	N = 8 Items (n = 6 caloric labelling in chain restaurants; n = 2 calorie posting legislation)	Item example: ‘Do you favour or oppose the government requiring chain restaurants, such as McDonalds or Subway, to post calorie information on menus or menu boards for each food item at the point of purchase?’
Carson et al. (2014)⁵⁷	Qualitative research	PA (SB)	Public: N = 27 (parents with a child under four years, who attended a child care centre)	‘perception’	Semi-structured focus groups	N = 6 questions	Questions: ‘What does sedentary behaviour mean to you? Is this definition similar/different than what you thought it was?’ ‘How clear are these guidelines?’ ‘What is your initial reaction to the guidelines? How do they make you feel as a parent (e.g. Irritated/Frustrated/Happy/Guilty)’ ‘Why do you think these guidelines are feasible/unfeasible or realistic/unrealistic?’ ‘The guideline sheet lists several health benefits for young children associated with meeting the guidelines. What are your thoughts about these statements? Do you agree or believe them?’ ‘From what source would you need this information from to consider it credible/trustworthy?’
Cradock et al. (2018)⁵⁸	Cross-sectional study	PA	Public: N = 906	‘support’	Telephone survey	N = 5 items, (n = 1 item per policy)	Item example: ‘Do you support funding for programs that encourage walking and bicycling to school?’ Response format: ‘Yes’/’No’
Curbach et al. (2018)⁵⁹	Cross-sectional study	PA	Public: N = 923 (delivery system actors: physicians and general practitioners)	‘attitudes’	Mail survey	N = 17 items	Questions focused on the respondents’ awareness and knowledge of the prevention scheme, prescribing behaviour, barriers to using the scheme, and on the physicians’ attitude towards patient counselling for physical activity and some socio-demographic items. Barrier items: For the barriers to using the scheme, the respondents could choose from a list of barriers to implementation and rate the relevance of these on a four-point Likert-scale.
Day et al. (2015)⁶⁰	Qualitative research	Diet	Public: N = 128 (n = 117 pupils; n = 6 catering managers; n = 5 heads of schools)	‘perception’, authors use ‘acceptability’ synonymously (no definition provided)	Semi-structured focus groups	20–40 min	The focus group topic schedule used semi-structured open-ended questions to guide discussion, for example: ‘What do you think about your school meals? (healthiness/quality/choice/quantity?)’
De la Cruz-Góngora et al. (2017)²¹	Qualitative research	Diet	Public: N = 135	‘perception’, authors use ‘acceptability’ synonymously (no definition provided)	Focus groups	Ø 75 min	Focus groups following thematic analysis: Food label acceptability has been operationalized as ‘liking it and confidence in it’
Emm et al. (2013)²⁶	Cross-sectional study	Diet and PA	Public: N = 188	‘support’	Online survey	N = 17 items (n = 7 for redistributive; n = 6 for compensatory and n = 4 for price-raising policies)	Participants were presented with descriptions of proposed obesity policies identified as having the largest potential impact on public health and which were politically feasible. Participants rated their agreement to the presented policy options via a seven-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 = ‘disagree strongly’ to 7 = ‘agree strongly’. The items were taken from a measure by Barry et al. (2009).⁷³ Reliability for the subscales: redistributive: α = 0.71; compensatory: α = 0.52; price raising: α = 0.77
Faulkner et al. (2016)⁴¹	Qualitative research	PA (SB)	Public: N = 104 (n = 18 students; n = 52 parents; n = 17 teachers; n = 5 paediatricians; n = 16 qualified exercise professionals)	‘perception’, authors use ‘acceptability’ synonymously (no definition provided)	Semi-structured focus group interviews	NA	Question example: ‘In the current case for example, do people perceive a need for 24-hour movement guidelines and are the recommendations perceived as relevant, achievable, and acceptable to their lives as a parent, qualified exercise professional, or paediatrician?’
Fitzgerald et al. (2018)⁶¹	Qualitative research	Diet	Public: N = 13 (managing directors, owners, head chefs and franchises)	‘attitudes’	Semi-structured interviews	40–60 min	Interviews focused on participants’ perceptions and experiences, potential barriers and facilitators surrounding the implementation of calorie menu labelling. A semi-structured topic guide was developed to allow for comparisons of experiences and attitudes in relation to calorie menu labelling. The topic guides took an inductive approach and allowed for unique insights and perspectives to emerge. Framework approach⁵¹ was used for data analysis.
Gase et al. (2015)⁴⁸	Cross-sectional study	PA (AT)	Public: N = 912 (registered voters in Los Angeles, CA, USA)	‘support’	Telephone survey	N = 31 items; 3–4 items per policy (n = 9)	Questions partially developed on already existing (Omnibus Household Survey, California Household Travel Survey), partially developed specifically for this study. Participants were asked whether they strongly supported, somewhat supported, somewhat opposed or strongly opposed ‘redirecting current federal, state or local transportation dollars’ to implement nine specific transportation improvements (increase traffic enforcement, develop more bike paths or lanes, etc.).
Hagmann et al. (2018)¹⁷	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 5238 (participants in the Swiss food panel)	‘acceptability’, definition provided: ‘how individuals feel and think about the implementation or continued existence of policies’²	Online survey	N = 8 items	Respondents were provided with a short introductory statement: ‘Given the overweight problem (in our society), a lot of measures have been proposed (in order to tackle it).’ They were then asked to indicate their acceptance of different specific measures (‘How do you rate the following strategies to reduce sugar consumption in the Swiss population?’). Each item was rated on a seven-point response scale ranging from 1 (‘do not agree at all’) to 7 (‘fully agree’).
Joyce et al. (2020)²⁰	Randomized cross-over trial	Diet	Public: N = 36 (school children, 6–9 years old)	‘acceptability’, no definition provided	Randomized cross-over trial	NA	A modified version of the United Stated Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Services, Child Nutrition Programs, Team Nutrition try-day taste-testing ballot was used.⁷⁴ Acceptability operationalized trough optics, taste fulfilment (satiation) and leftovers (plate waste weighing).
Julia et al. (2015)²⁵	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 1996	‘support’	Online survey	N = 7 items	Questionnaire items pertained to issues regarding acceptance of the tax (‘I support imposing a tax on sweetened beverages’, ‘I support imposing taxes on any and all foods and beverages which are bad for health’, ‘I support imposing a tax on sweetened beverages only if the money is then used to improve the health-care system’).
Jürkenbeck et al. (2020)²⁷	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 1035	‘support’	Online survey	N = 8 items	The participants had to evaluate statements about their general opinion regarding governmental interventions to support healthy eating behaviour, and statements about their own eating behaviour, using a five-point Likert scale ranging from + 2 (‘I totally agree’) to −2 (‘I do not agree at all’). Afterwards, various statements about specific policy interventions had to be evaluated on the same five-point Likert scale.
Kang et al. (2017)⁴⁶	Qualitative study	Diet and PA	Public: N = 11715 (twitter users)	‘opinions’	Textual analysis (of Twitter data)	N = 480 tweets	Acceptability was defined through opinion mining on tweets. Tweets were categorized as either positive, neutral or negative. The opinions of tweets were extracted using an unsupervised, lexicon-based approach. After calculating both a positive and a negative value of each tweet, the method compares the two values to determine the polarity of the overall opinion and level of intensity in the tweet. The approach employs a number of look-up tables such as Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count.⁷²
Kongats et al. (2019)²⁸	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public and political: N = 2702 (n = 2400 general public; n = 302 policy influencers)	‘support’, authors use ‘acceptability’ synonymously and refer to the review by Diepeveen et al.⁴	Online survey	N = 14 items	Participants were asked to rank their support for each policy via a four-point Likert scale. In total, 13 questions specific to policies promoting healthy eating were asked. The sample of policy influencers were asked to indicate their level of support for an additional 20 policy options on healthy eating. A binary variable for ‘support’ (combining strongly support with ‘somewhat support’ responses) vs. ‘opposition’ (combining ‘strongly oppose’ with ‘somewhat oppose’ responses) was created for the survey.
Kwon et al. (2019)²⁹	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 19857: (n = 3767 Australia, n = 3118 Canada, n = 4057 Mexico, n = 4047 UK, n = 4868 USA)	‘support’	Online survey	N = 13 items; (n = 1 item for each policy option)	Policy support measured via a three-point Likert scale. Item wording: ‘Would you support or oppose a government policy that would require…’ The scale consisted of ‘support’, ‘neutral’ and ‘oppose’. Additionally, participants could select ‘don't know’ or ‘refuse to answer’.
Le Roux et al. (2021)⁶²	Cross-sectional study	Diet and PA	Public: N = 341 (students participating in the public health service programme)	‘satisfaction’	Paper survey	N = 14 items	‘Satisfaction questionnaire’, the scale consisted of ‘agree’ and ‘disagree’ or ‘yes’ and ‘no’.
Mathews et al. (2010)³⁹	Cross-sectional study	PA	Political: N = 311 (n = 99 district officials; n = 215 principals)	‘attitudes’	Web-based and paper surveys	N = 18 items	‘School Travel Survey’ for district officials: http://prevention.sph.sc.edu/projects/Travel%20survey-District.pdf and school principals: http://prevention.sph.sc.edu/projects/Travel%20survey-Principals.pdf. Respondents were asked if they currently support local efforts to encourage walking to school and what type of impact walking can have on students’ health and academic performance.
Micheelsen et al. (2014)⁶³	Randomized controlled trial	Diet	Public: N = 147 (n = 91 ‘New Nordic Diet’, n = 56 ‘Average Danish Diet’)	‘acceptability’, no definition provided	Question-naire	N = 14 items, 7 for each policy dimension (n = 2)	Acceptability measured as ‘practical acceptance’ and ‘eating acceptance’: The practical acceptance index consisted of all items in dimensions (1) ‘preparation of diet’ (e.g. ‘diet is easy to cook’) and (5) ‘continuation with the diet after the intervention’ (e.g. ‘It will not be too expensive to stay on my diet after the intervention’), together with one item from dimension (3) ‘everyday life and diet’ (e.g. ‘Following my diet does not require a lot of planning’). The eating acceptance index was made up of the remaining items in dimension (3) (e.g. ‘My diet fits nicely with my everyday life.’) along with all items in (2) ‘consumption and diet’ (e.g. ‘My diet is tasty’) and (4) ‘wellbeing and diet’ (e.g. ‘Eating my diet has given me energy’).
Milford et al. (2019)⁴⁴	Mixed-methods study	Diet	Public: N = 2858 (n = 10 military kitchen staff; n = 2848 soldiers)	‘attitudes’	(1) Interviews and (2) paper-based question-naire	Interviews: NA Survey: N = 4 items	Qualitative interviews with kitchen staff on implementation of Meatless Monday: The topics the participants emphasized during the interviews were: relevance of targeting meat, knowledge, decision-making processes and soldiers’ attitudes. Quantitative survey on soldier attitudes to vegetarian food: ‘Reducing meat consumption is an efficient environmental measure’, ‘A high level of meat consumption is harmful to health’, ‘A well-balanced vegetarian diet contains all the nutrients the body needs’ and ‘Animal welfare is important to me’.
Morley et al. (2012)³⁰	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 1511	‘acceptability’, no definition provided	Phone Interviews	N = 18 items (n = 3 food labelling, n = 3 taxation, n = 1 product reformulation, n = 11 marketing)	Participants gave their opinions on food labelling, product reformulation, taxation and marketing through the use of Likert scales and close-ended questions. Participants were asked whether they were in favour of a number of policy practices and give their answer mostly using a five-point Likert scale. Some items instead used a three-point Likert scale (‘not regulate’/‘restrict’/‘stop this practice completely’). Some items also presented a selection of options from which participants were able to select their answer.
Nathan et al. (2011)³⁶	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 384 (delivery system actors: school principals and deputy assistant principals)	‘attitudes’	Computer Assisted Telephone Interview	20 min	Principals were asked to respond on a four-point Likert scale (1 = ‘strongly agree’ to 4 = ‘strongly disagree’), whether they felt that it is part of a school’s role to provide an environment which encourages healthy eating; that it is appropriate for schools to implement vegetable and fruit breaks and that vegetable and fruit breaks do not take away too much time from other educational priorities in the classroom or are disruptive to classroom routine.
Nguyen et al. (2015)⁴⁹	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 256 (educators)	‘perception’	Self-administered structured questio-nnaire	N = 3 items	Experts in the development of the food based dietary guidelines and primary-school-based interventions were involved in the development process of the questionnaire. The questionnaire was piloted at two schools and modified to enhance its validity before being used for the main study.
Odom et al. (2017)²³	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 7845 (2012: n = 3926; 2015: n = 3919)	‘attitudes’	Online survey	N = 6 items (n = 3 items per policy)	Questions on sodium in restaurants and manufactured foods: A five-point Likert scale was used to record responses: 1 = ‘strongly disagree’; 2 = ‘somewhat disagree’; 3 = ‘neither agree nor disagree’; 4 = ‘moderately agree’; and 5 = ‘strongly agree’, Responses of one, two and three were grouped together and termed ‘neutral/disagree’. Responses of four and five were grouped together and termed ‘agree’. Questions on sodium in school cafeterias, workplace cafeterias and quick-serve restaurants: A four-point Likert scale was used to record responses: 1 = ‘strongly oppose’; 2 = ‘slightly oppose’; 3 = ‘slightly support’; 4 = ‘strongly support’. Responses of one and two were grouped together and termed ‘neutral/not support’, and responses of three and four were collapsed into ‘support’.
Payán et al. (2017)⁵⁵	Qualitative research	Diet	Public: N = 64 (high school students, 14-19 years old)	‘acceptability’, no definition provided	Focus groups	N = 6 questions	Focus group questions: ‘Where do you regularly eat lunch on a normal school day? Why?’ ‘About how often do you eat in your school cafeteria in a week? Why?’ ‘What types of changes have you noticed in your school cafeteria compared to previous years (if any)?’ ‘What do you think about these changes?’ ‘What do you like about your school’s cafeteria?’ [Probe: ‘What kinds of cafeteria foods do you like? Why?’] ‘What do you not like about your school’s cafeteria?’ [Probe: ‘What kinds of cafeteria foods do you not like? Why?’] ‘Describe ways to improve your school cafeteria and the meals served’.
Pell et al. (2019)³⁸	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 3104 (participants of International Food Policy Study)	‘support’	Online survey	N = 1 item	Single-item measure for support of the policy: ‘In 2018 a new sugary drink tax will be introduced in the UK. This aims to encourage manufacturers to reduce the sugar in drinks. The money will be spent on breakfast clubs, and sports in primary schools. Do you support or oppose this policy?’
Pettigrew et al. (2019)²⁴	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 607 (2008 survey; school staff members from 699 schools) N = 307 (2016 survey; school staff members from 798 schools)	‘attitudes’	Online survey	NA	Respondents were asked to report their attitudes to a range of potential policy extensions and their preferences for various forms of support that would enable them to effectively implement an enhanced version of the policy (rated on a five-point scale from ‘strongly disagree’ to ‘strongly agree’).
Regan et al. (2016)³¹	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public N = 501	‘perspective’	Online survey	N = 13 items (one item for each policy)	Participants were asked to rate the level of importance that they felt the Irish government should assign to 13 different salt reduction policies. The assessed policies spanned government-industry cooperation, educational measures, restrictions on salt content of foods, labelling and fiscal measures. Each item was scored on a scale of one (‘not at all important’) to five (‘extremely important’).
Reynolds et al. (2019)¹⁸	Randomized controlled trial	Diet	Public: N = 7058	‘acceptability’ used, definition provided: ‘how individuals feel and think about the implementtation or continued existence of policies’.²	Online survey	N = 3 items	Acceptability of the policy was assessed using three items (α = 0.97; c.f⁷⁵): ‘How acceptable do you find the policy?; How much are you in favour of the new policy being introduced?; Do you support or oppose the new policy?’. Each item was rated on a seven-point scale, labelled at either end (‘strongly oppose’; ‘strongly support’).
Riazi et al. (2017)³²	Qualitative research	PA (SB)	Public: N = 10 (stakeholders: physicians) N = 92 (end users: parents)	‘impressions’, ‘acceptability’ used synonymously (no definition provided)	(1) Interview, (2) Focus groups	(1) 25–47 min (2) N = 6 discussion questions	(1) Interviews with stakeholders (experts in paediatric and family medicine, physical activity knowledge translation and research) and (2) Focus groups with end users (parents and early childhood educators). Both groups engaged in open-ended discussions about their first impressions of the Movement Guidelines, the clarity of the guidelines, and the need for an integrated guideline (e.g. ‘Do you find these integrated guidelines helpful or not helpful?’).
Richards et al. (2011)⁶⁵	Qualitative research	PA (AT)	Public: N = 2784 (submissions from 16 councils)	‘support’	Textual analysis (of submissions to city council annual plans)	N = 2784 submissions	Analysis of submissions to city council annual plans related to active transport: All submissions were reviewed and categories of responses were created, for city, year, type of respondent, transport mode, what they were asking for and the reasons given for the request (e.g. health or sustainability).
Rida et al. (2019)⁶⁶	Mixed-methods study	Diet	Public N = 15	‘attitudes’	Structured focus groups	N = 13 questions	Questions were developed to describe the nutrition knowledge of school food-personnel and the school food environment, contextualize attitudes and strategies of school food-personnel towards offering healthy school meals and barriers to face in offering and serving healthy meals. These questions were presented in two focus group sessions.
Robles et al. (2017)³⁷	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 1007	‘support’	Telephone survey	N = 9 items	Policy support was measured through a series of questions adapted from prior local obesity-related public opinion surveys carried out by Field Research in the Los Angeles region. Participants were questioned about their views on incentivizing/promotional policies and practices, limiting/restrictive policies and practices and changing business practices. All questions were close-ended. Participants selected their answers from a short list of possible alternatives.
Rydell et al. (2018)⁶⁷	Randomized controlled trial	Diet	Public: N = 265 (participants eligible/nearly eligible for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program)	‘satisfaction’	Online survey	N = 4 items	Participants received a questionnaire with four close-ended questions to assess satisfaction with various elements of the programme via an anchored six-point Likert scale.
Signal et al. (2018)²²	Qualitative research	Diet	Public and political: N = 22 (n = 3 politicians; n = 4 bureaucrats; n = 7 public health experts; n = 5 food industry leaders; n = 3 consumer representatives)	‘acceptability’, no definition provided	Key informant interview method⁵²	N = 11 semi-structured interview questions	Question example: ‘Thinking about the next 5–10 years how acceptable is a New Zealand [tax/subsidy] likely to be to key stakeholders and why?’ Prompts: ‘Starting with (your sector). What about other key stakeholders like the public, politicians from various parties, the food industry, public health groups (e.g. Heart Foundation)’.
Swift et al. (2018)⁶⁸	Qualitative research	Diet	Public: N = 412 (online forum users) N = 618 twitter accounts (n = 213 private accounts; n = 206 health-related organizations; n = 171 non-health-related organizations; n = 28 educational organizations)	‘perception’	Textual analysis (of online forum posts and tweets)	N = 412 (online forum posts) N = 618 (tweets)	Textual analysis of digital spaces: Study two examined posts on online forums about the Soft Drinks Industry Levy. Posts were categorized as either positive or negative. Study three examined tweets about the Sugar Smart app, likewise categorized as positive or negative.
Thomas-Meyer et al. (2017)⁶⁹	Qualitative research	Diet	Public: N = 1158 online readers	‘support’	Textual analysis (of online comments on news articles)	N = 1645 comments	Thematic analysis of online reader comments using framework method.⁵¹ Analysis of public commenting on popular news websites in relation to SSB taxes. Comments were categorized as negative or positive, positive indicating support.
Turner-McGrievy et al. (2014)⁷⁰	Cross-sectional study	Diet	Public: N = 71 (parents of children at a university-based childcare facility)	‘support’	Online survey	N = 37 items (referring to different aspects of the program)	Items assessing support for menu changes and support for adding more meatless entrée on a nine-point Likert Scale (1 being ‘not supportive’ and 9 being ‘supportive’). and open-ended questions to receive comments/opinions. Item example: ‘Below are the proposed nutrition standards for centres enrolled in South Carolina’s ABC program. Please rate your support for this change on a scale of 1 to 9 (1 being not supportive and 9 being supportive)’. In addition, parents were asked about their support for a centre-specific policy of only bringing healthy snacks for classroom celebrations.
Vargas-Meza et al. (2019)¹⁹	Randomized controlled trial	Diet	Public: N = 2105 (n = 697 Guideline Daily Allowances; n = 708 Warning Labels; n = 700 Multiple Traffic Lights)	‘acceptability’, based on theoretical framework by Grunert and Wills⁷⁶	Online survey	N = 10 items (n = 3 likability; n = 4 attractiveness; n = 3 cognitive workload)	Label acceptability was evaluated using three indicators: likability, attractiveness and perceived cognitive workload, based on the framework of system acceptability by Nielsen.⁵⁰ A questionnaire with ten statements was used to assess acceptability. Questions were answered by the participants using a five-point Likert scale.
Yun et al. (2018)³³	Cross-sectional study	PA (SB and AT)	Public: N = 2519	‘support’	Online survey	NA	Aspects assessed: Individual responsibility for behaviours (e.g. providing programs to educate or motivate the general public about the importance of regular physical activity), modifying community environments (e.g. the quantity and quality of green spaces, safe areas for physical activity, and the design of neighbourhoods to encourage informal physical activity), targeting legislative changes to modify the environment (e.g. banning all traffic in high-use pedestrian areas during peak hours to support active or public transportation and restricting the use of elevators for trips to lower floors), focusing on economic levers (e.g. incentives, subsidies and tax credits).

Acceptability theme: aspects relating to acceptability in the study.

Length refers to Item/Questions aiming at acceptability(-related concepts).

AT, active transport; Diet, dietary behaviour; NA, not available; PA, physical activity; SB, sedentary behaviour.

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