Unravelling the Food-Health Nexus, new report by IPES FOOD

Good food is a cornerstone of good health, and this fundamental relationship is widely understood. Yet profound changes in global food systems over the last decades have resulted in significant negative impacts on health and well-being that range from food insecurity to chronic disease, and from environmental degradation to diminished economic opportunity and the erosion of culture. These impacts are experienced unequally across the globe and between different groups of people in different places.

Transformational change is needed. At the Global Alliance for the Future of Food we believe that health and well-being are central to sustainable food systems that are renewable, resilient, equitable, healthy, diverse, and interconnected. We are a strategic alliance of mostly private foundations working together and with others to transform global food systems now and for future generations. As such, we have the privilege, the responsibility, and the opportunity to make the impact of food systems on health and wellbeing more visible to decision makers, and to strengthen the fundamental role that food systems play in creating and sustaining health and well-being in all communities and populations. We commissioned this report from the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food) as one contribution to this shared goal.

In the report, IPES-Food — an independent panel of food systems experts — assesses the negative health impacts of food systems and explains how these systems are locked into cycles that produce poor health. The members of IPES-Food brought their collective wisdom and diverse perspectives to this challenge, outlining the unacceptable harm caused by our current food systems, and calling for precaution, prevention, and collective action. The Global Alliance for the Future of Food worked closely with IPES-Food to: understand the broad range of evidence that informs the report’s findings; analyze how and why food systems are making people sick; expose the health costs externalized by the food system; understand how to internalize these costs through healthier food systems practices and explore potential levers for change.

The report’s findings are startling and difficult to ignore. Multiple channels across food systems threaten human health. The resulting health impacts are severe, but are rarely examined together, systematically. Each impact appears as discrete and unrelated to the next, but through a systems view their interrelationships, linkages, and complex associations are revealed. The health impacts of food systems disproportionately affect the most vulnerable in our communities, and are compounded by climate change, poverty, inequality, poor sanitation, and the prevalent disconnect between food production and consumption. The true costs of these impacts are staggering.

“When health impacts are placed alongside social and environmental impacts, and the mounting costs they generate, the case for action is overwhelming. It is now clearer than ever that healthy people and a healthy planet are co-dependent”

Olivier De Schutter, IPES-Food co-chair and former UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food

The Global Alliance is deeply interested in the evidence challenges explored by IPES-Food in this report. When viewed holistically, the diverse evidence available about the health impacts of food systems points to an urgent need for fundamental change. Collective action can be catalyzed not only by improving the development of scientific evidence, but also by bridging diverse experience and knowledge of the health impacts of food systems to better understand the problems and generate creative solutions.

We at the Global Alliance are interested in working with others to understand how we can break the cycles that produce negative health impacts and catalyze positive change. The report identifies five levers that support rebuilding food systems on new and healthier foundations.

Read full report here.

Original source: Scaling Up Nutrition.
Posted on 16 October 2017