PHM-Exch> Five ways to tackle disastrous diets – UN food expert

[Claudio Schuftan]

Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights www.ohchr.org
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*Five ways to tackle disastrous diets – UN food expert*GENEVA – “Our food
systems are making people sick,” warned Olivier De
Schutter, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food, on
Tuesday. “One in seven people globally are undernourished, and many more
suffer from the 'hidden hunger' of micronutrient deficiency, while 1.3
billion are
overweight or obese.”
“Faced with this public health crisis, we continue to prescribe medical
remedies:
nutrition pills and early-life nutrition strategies for those lacking in
calories;
slimming pills, lifestyle advice and calorie counting for the overweight.
But we
must tackle the systemic problems that generate poor nutrition in all its
forms,”
the independent expert said as he presented his report* on nutrition to the
UN
Human Rights Council.
“The right to food means not only access to an adequate quantity of food,
but
also the ability to have a balanced and nutritious diet,” Mr. De Schutter
underlined. “Governments must not abstain from their responsibility to
secure
this right.”
Mr. De Schutter identified five priority actions for placing nutrition at
the heart of
food systems in the developed and developing world:
· taxing unhealthy products;
· regulating foods high in saturated fats, salt and sugar;
· cracking down on junk food advertising;
· overhauling misguided agricultural subsidies that make certain
ingredients cheaper than others; and
· supporting local food production so that consumers have access to
healthy, fresh and nutritious foods.
“Urbanization, supermarketization and the global spread of modern lifestyles
have shaken up traditional food habits. The result is a public health
disaster,”
the Special Rapporteur said. “Governments have been focusing on increasing
calorie availability, but they have often been indifferent to what kind of
calories
are on offer, at what price, to whom they are accessible, and how they are
marketed.”
The Special Rapporteur highlighted, for example, that in 2010 U.S. companies
spent $8.5 billion advertising food, candy and non-alcoholic beverages,
while
$44 million was budgeted for the U.S. Government’s primary standing healthy
eating program.**
“We have deferred to food companies the responsibility for ensuring that a
good
nutritional balance emerges. Voluntary guidelines and piecemeal nutrition
initiatives have failed to create a system with the right signals, and the
odds
remain stacked against the achievement of a healthy, balanced diet,” he
said.
The Special Rapporteur also identified the abundance of processed food as a
major threat to improving nutrition. “Heavy processing thrives in our
global food
system, and is a win-win for multinational agri-food companies. Processed
items can be produced and distributed on a huge scale, thanks to cheap
subsidized ingredients and their increased shelf life.”
“But for the people, it is a lose-lose,” he stressed. “Heavily processed
foods lead
to diets richer in saturated and trans-fatty acids, salt and sugars.
Children
become hooked on the junk foods targeted at them. In better-off countries,
the
poorest population groups are most affected because foods high in fats,
sugar
and salt are often cheaper than healthy diets as a result of misguided
subsidies
whose health impacts have been wholly ignored.”
The UN expert noted that the West is now exporting diabetes and heart
disease
to developing countries, along with the processed foods that line the
shelves of
global supermarkets. By 2030, more than 5 million people will die each year
before the age of 60 from non-communicable diseases linked to diets.
“We should not simply invest our hopes in medicalizing our diets with
enriched
products, or changing people’s choices through health warnings. We need
ambitious, targeted nutrition strategies to protect the right to adequate
food, and
such strategies will only work if the food systems underpinning them are put
right,” the Special Rapporteur said.

(*) Read the full report:
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/19session/A.HRC.19.59_English
.
pdf
(**) Food marketing figures from The Advertising Age, June 2011. US
nutritional
spending ($44m) refers to the Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity
budget of the US
Centre for Disease Prevention and Control and does not encompass various
nutritional
programs run by the US Department of Agriculture.
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