Trade and consumption of cheap junk food are an obstacle for healthy diets

The globalized food system is not delivering the diets that people need for a healthy life, but instead contributes to obesity and overweight especially in countries that are importing most of their food, FAO Director-General, José Graziano da Silva said.

“Unfortunately, commodities and industrialized cheap food are much easier for international trade,” Graziano da Silva said, addressing participants of a technical workshop on food safety and healthy diets organized by the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

The problem is rife in the small island developing states in the Pacific, which have to import most of their food, with obesity rates ranging from more than 30 percent in Fiji to 80 percent among women in American Samoa. In at least 10 Pacific Island countries, more than 50 percent (and in some up to 90 percent) of the population is overweight. The overconsumption of imported industrialized food high in salt, sodium, sugar and trans fats is the major driver behind this situation.

Estimates indicate that today 2.6 billion are overweight and that the prevalence of obesity in the global population has increased from 11.7 percent in 2012 to 13.2 percent in 2016.

“If we do not adopt urgent actions to halt the increasing obesity rates, we soon may have more obese people than undernourished people in the world,” Graziano da Silva said. “There are several underlying factors driving the global pandemic of obesity. Unhealthy diets are the most significant one.”

He pointed to the increased availability and accessibility of food types that are very energy-dense, high in fat, sugar and salt, whose sales have been spurred on by intense marketing and advertising.

“Fast and junk food is the best example of that. This kind of food is cheaper, and easier to access and prepare than fresh food, particularly for poor people in urban areas,” Graziano said, noting that when resources for food become scarce, people choose less expensive foods that are often high in caloric density and low in nutrients.

The consumption of these cheap foods comes, however, at a high cost to society with obesity a risk factor for many non-communicable diseases such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes and some cancers.

Public action, consumer behavior

“Countries should have in place laws that protect healthy and local diets, and encourage the private sector to produce healthier food,” Graziano da Silva said.

These could include taxes on unhealthy food products; clear and informative labelling of products; restrictions of advertising for junk food to children; and, a reduction in the levels of salt and sugar used to produce food, or even banning the use of some ingredients such as trans fats.

Governments should also encourage food diversification, and facilitate market access for local products from family farming, for example, school feeding programmes that link local production to school meals, thus boosting the local economy while promoting healthy diets for children.

The FAO Director-General also said trade agreements must be designed in ways that make local nutritious food cheaper to produce while restricting the influx of imported cheap food that are high in fat, sugar and salt.

He also stressed the importance of education, including school curricula that teach children about healthy cooking and healthy food choices, and greater access to information for consumers to promote awareness and healthier dietary choices

Original source: FAO
Published on 12 September 2018