Tom Arnold, former Director General of the Institute of
International and European Affairs (IIEA) who doubles as a member of the
Global Panel has expressed worry over the rate at which obesity is escalating
as a result of bad food systems.
According to him, all over
the world there is an increase in overweight and it is the problem that needs
critical attention.
Mr. Arnold in an interview
with this reporter at the just-ended EAT Stockholm Food Forum, said the
challenges which are emanating from lifestyle, bad food system and eating habits
are going to store up problems in terms of diabetes, non-communicable-diseases
and public health generally.
Governments should try to
arrange with private sectors in food processing and have policies are in place
to ensure that bad outcomes of diets are avoided, he admonished.
He added, currently major
issues on the table of Global Panel Members are on urban diets, improving diets
in the era of food markets transformations and acknowledging that diets are
changing in a lot of countries for variety of reasons.
He said the goal of Global
Panel is to ensure that things are done in the right directions by advising
governments and giving recommendations based on research.
Mr. Arnold observed that,
it is usually poor people who are mostly affected “Who are not eating
particularly well” since sometimes healthier diets are more expensive hence
they end up eating less good quality food.
“It is not a simple matter
to say avoid unhealthy diet it’s about helping people have access to better
quality diets.”he noted.
He advised that leaders
focus on educating people on lifestyle specially in the urban areas where
people opt for a lot of processed foods.
There should be public
policies in place to encourage people to opt for healthier diets and better
health systems, he added.
Fish and vegetables should
be made available, attractive and affordable to encourage people consume it
than unhealthy options.
Governments have to come in
to play a role by having proper policies for labelling that, some products are
just unhealthy and packaging must be clear that it is unhealthy, “Increasingly
we have try to at least point it out to people and make sure that they are very
aware of the consequences of the choices they are making.”
Sandy Thomas, Director, Global
Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition said the aim is to help
inform and influence governments to manage food systems so they deliver by
healthier diets for all people in a more accessible and affordable way.
She stated the reason Global
Panel places emphasis on healthy diets is because there are various forms of
malnutrition in Ghana and other developing countries particularly Sub-Saharan
Africa and South Asia where there is under-nutrition with staunting children
under 5 with micro nutrients deficiency in diet, lack of ion, zinc etc.
What the panel does is to
look to the evidence available to help governments introduce policies that will
help combat these forms of malnutritions and deliver healthy diets.
She commended Ghana for
making a lot of progress in a relatively short number of years by managing
to bring staunting in children under 5 down from above 30% to below20% but
urged to go down further and also for the introduction of the school feeding
programme which contributes to healthy diets in children.
She advised that leaders
should support informal markets to prepare healthier food so that people are
offered a choice by making sure that markets have better sanitations, better
storage for foods, they can offer more fruits and vegetables and foods doesn’t
have to be cooked in fat.
According to Global Panel’s
briefs for 2017, food systems are failing to deliver secure access to safe,
high-quality diets for everyone. In this context, it is essential to
improve food environments so that they can deliver a range of benefits to
improved nutrition, healthier populations, and more productive economies.
Nutrition is a new global
priority, reflected in the current United Nation’s designated Decade of
Action on Nutrition. In the 2016 Foresight report of the Global Panel on
Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition laid out the scale of the crisis
which uncovered that more than three billion people around the world are
currently affected by malnutrition as a direct impact of low-quality
diets.
More than two billion have
insufficient vitamins and minerals, and incidences of overweight and obesity
are growing in every region.
The latter are of particular
concern, being responsible for the rise of diet-related non-communicable
diseases (NCDs), including Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and certain
forms of cancer.
The challenge for
policymakers around the world is to implement the policies and actions that are
needed to ‘fix’ today’s food systems, which are failing to deliver secure
access to safe, high-quality diets for everyone.
In this context, it is
essential to improve food environments so that they can deliver a
range of benefits: improved nutrition, healthier populations, and more
productive local economies.
The Global Panel’s Foresight
report emphasizes that high-quality diets can only be achieved by implementing
coordinated, nutrition-enhancing policies across the whole food system.
Such actions represent a way for nations around the world to use quality
diets as a key policy entry point for tackling all forms of malnutrition, from
persistent under-nutrition to overweight and obesity.
The bottom line is that
today’s food systems are failing to drive improvements in nutrition; and,
without decisive action, malnutrition will continue to grow in scale and
impact. This will have severe implications for health.
The risk factors associated
with low-quality, less nutritious diets already pose a greater risk to
health than unsafe sex, alcohol, drug and tobacco use combined.
Instructively, the Global
Panel is an independent group of influential experts with a commitment to
tackling global challenges in food and nutrition security. It works to ensure
that agriculture and food systems support access to nutritious foods at every
stage of life.
Its members are: John
Beddington (Co-Chair) and Former United Kingdom Government Chief Scientific
Advisor; John Kufuor (Co-Chair) and Former President of Ghana; Akinwumi
Adesina, President, African Development Bank ; Tom Arnold, Director General, Institute
of International and European Affairs (IIEA); José Graziano da Silva,
Director General, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
(FAO); Agnes Kalibata President, Alliance for a Green Revolution in
Africa (AGRA); Rachel Kyte, Special Representative of the UN Secretary
General for Sustainable Energy and CEO of Sustainable Energy for All (SE4All);
Maurício Antônio Lopes, President, Brazilian Agricultural Research
Corporation (Embrapa); Rhoda Peace Tumusiime, Former Commissioner for Rural
Economy and Agriculture, African Union Commission; Srinath Reddy, President,
Public Health Foundation of India; and Emmy Simmons Board Member, Partnership
to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa/AGree
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