Conference 10th January at Overseas
Development Instite (ODI), London.
Summary by Dr. Gonzalo Palomo.
“Unbalance diet for an unbalance
World”. That could the conclusion of last Conference at the ODI in
London. In less than 30 years overweight has increased from 250 M
people suffering overweight worldwide to 900 M. On the other hand 1
billion human-beings suffer under-nutrition. Steve Wiggins, ODI
Research Fellow, summarized the causes focusing on food industry
which make fat and sugar cheap and affordable with and increasing
presence in main stream media. Dr. Roxana Valdés-Ramos (UNAM,
Mexico) highlighted diabetes as the first cause of death and the
tenth of morbility in Mexico. Health nutrition illnesses seem to be
due to less physical activity, fast food, female out-homes labour and
ethnicity. Mexico authorities are pioneer in setting policies about
education and how to difficult availability of damaging foods through
taxes.
Professor Barry M. Popkin, University
of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, thinks that cultural variations
decline then food behaviour is more and more similar globally: more
calories, animal source food and refined carbohydrates opposite to
less legumes and vegetables intake. Some of his trends are policy
driven as well. For instance when South Korea joined the World Trade
Organisation (WTO) people passed from mainly home-cooked to processed
food and consequently overweight dramatically increased. Professor of
Food Policy Tim Lang, City University London, summarized the issue in
six points: changes in agriculture production, new policies like CAP,
junk food as a “social glue”, public health information,
political poor-sensitiveness and, finally, focused on the changing
situation nowadays. The problem is the model itself with a lot of
external costs and the enormous amount of money we waste in food,
which make it an scenario of counter-party interests. As a multiple
levels problem it has to be faced through different
multi-stakeholders strategies.
Finally, Andrew Opie, Director of Food
and sustainability, British Retail Consortium, agreed with almost all
the statements addressed previously and recognized that things could
improve. Food industry position is more keen on policy-based
strategies than volunteer actions from industry unless we want
another front of competition with nutrition health as an excuse.
