Search NaijaAgroNet

Showing posts with label diets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label diets. Show all posts

Thursday, October 17, 2019

UNICEF warns ‘Poor diets damaging children’s health worldwide - NaijaAgroNet

NaijaAgroNet

 
High number of children are suffering the consequences of poor diets and a food system that is failing them, UNICEF warned today in a new report on children, food and nutrition, and as the United Nations and partners commemorate World Food Day, reports NaijaAgroNet.

The State of the World’s Children 2019: Children, food and nutrition finds that at least 1 in 3 children under five – or 200 million – is either undernourished or overweight. Almost 2 in 3 children between six months and two years of age are not fed food that supports their rapidly growing bodies and brains. This puts them at risk of poor brain development, weak learning, low immunity, increased infections and, in many cases, death.

The report provides the most comprehensive assessment yet of 21st century child malnutrition in all its forms. It describes a triple burden of malnutrition: Undernutrition, hidden hunger caused by a lack of essential nutrients, and overweight among children under the age of five, noting that around the world:

  • 149 million children are stunted, or too short for their age, including 13.1 million children in Nigeria
  • 50 million children are wasted, or too thin for their height, including 2.9 million children in Nigeria
The report warns that poor eating and feeding practices start from the earliest days of a child’s life. Though breastfeeding can save lives, for example, in Nigeria, only 27 per cent of children under six months of age are exclusively breastfed and an increasing number of children are fed infant formula. This means many Nigerian children are missing out on the life-saving benefits of breastmilk which is a baby’s first vaccine and offers the best possible nutrition at the start of life.

In Nigeria, malnutrition remains a major public health and development concern:49 percent of children under five years of age are not growing well (they are either stunted, wasted or overweight). This is the second highest proportion after the Democratic Republic of Congo in the West and Central Africa region. This is partly because 34 percent of children between six months and two years of age are fed food that is not rich and diversified enough to ensure optimal growth. 

As children begin transitioning to soft or solid foods around the six-month mark, too many are introduced to the wrong kind of diet, according to the report. As children grow older, their exposure to unhealthy food becomes alarming, driven largely by inappropriate marketing and advertising, the abundance of ultra-processed foods in cities but also in remote areas, and increasing access to fast food and highly sweetened beverages.

The report also notes that climate-related disasters cause severe food crises. Drought, for example, is responsible for 80 per cent of damage and losses in agriculture globally, dramatically altering what food is available to children and families, as well as the quality and price of that food; Nigeria is also affected by climate change.

To address the growing malnutrition crisis in all its forms, UNICEF is issuing an urgent appeal to government, the private sector, donors, parents, families and businesses to help children grow healthy by:

  1. Investing more resources in interventions aimed at preventing malnutrition among young children and supporting treatment when prevention fails.
  2. Supporting nursing mothers to adequately feed and care for their children.
  3. Empowering families, children and young people to demand nutritious food, including by improving nutrition education and using proven legislation – such as sugar taxes – to reduce demand for unhealthy foods.
  4. Driving food suppliers to do the right thing for children, by incentivizing the provision of healthy, convenient and affordable foods. 
  5. Building healthy food environments for children and adolescents by using proven approaches, such as accurate and easy-to-understand labelling and stronger controls on the marketing of unhealthy foods.
  6. Mobilizing supportive systems – health, water and sanitation, education and social protection – to scale up nutrition results for all children.
  1. Collecting, analyzing and using good-quality data and evidence to guide action and track progress.

 Isaac Oyimah/Editor

 ... Linking agrobiz, sustainable environs, people & technology

Wednesday, July 25, 2018

Promote healthy diets says expert - NaijaAgroNet

Agronomists and Director-General, Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations, Mr. Graziano da Silva, has appealed to Portuguese-speaking countries under the auspices of Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP)reports NaijaAgroNet.

Da Silva also urged them to address the rising rates of obesity, which he described as “alarming” in develop and developing countries alike.

In 2017, he explained, almost two billion adults were overweight in the world, of whom around 700 million are obese.

"Excessive consumption of processed foods rich in salt and sugars is the main factor behind the increase in obesity,” he said. “Countries must face this situation by encouraging healthy diets through public policies that allow consumers to know the benefits and harms of what they are eating," he said.


Tackling the problem requires redoubling efforts in nutrition education, especially for mothers and children, and improving the information available to consumers through the regulation of food labeling and advertising, he added

Isaac Oyimah/GEE

... Linking agrobiz, sustainable environs, people & technology

Tuesday, November 14, 2017

Poor diets, ill-equipped food systems growing threat to nutrition

The Asia-Pacific region, home to most of the world's undernourished people, needs urgent action to improve diets and reset its food systems which are critical to the delivery of healthy, nutritious foods, says the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), reports NaijaAgroNet.

According to the findings of FAO's 2017 Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition report, there is a pressing need to tackle malnutrition alongside further promotion of the consumption of healthier foods while curbing the growth in consumption of unhealthy foods. 

In addition to further investment in agriculture, the report also underlines an urgent need to step up investment in other areas to tackle malnutrition, such as improvements to sanitation, access to safe drinking water, improving diets during the first 1,000 days of life and policies and promotions to increase consumption of diverse nutrient-rich foods.

While food security has improved for millions of people in the Asia-Pacific region, hunger and malnutrition appear to be on the rise in some areas, the report warns. The latest figures indicate roughly half-a-billion people are undernourished in Asia and the Pacific.

The situation is particularly dire for children below the age of five. Overall, one-in-four suffers from stunting.  However, the report also finds that, during the last 15 years, obesity is on the rise, with "significant increases" in the prevalence of overweight children, particularly in South Asia, that is from three per cent to seven per cent and Oceania, from five per cent to nearly 10 per cent.

Isaac Oyimah with agency reports/GEE


... Linking agrobiz, sustainable environs, people & technology

Thursday, October 19, 2017

Urban diets and nutrition: Trends, challenges, and opportunities for policy action

NaijaAgroNet:

The Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition has launched a new brief: Urban diets and nutrition: trends, challenges, and opportunities for policy action, reports NaijaAgroNet.
Just as the President of the African Development Bank Dr. Akinwumi Adesina has received the World Food Prize 2017.
The brief looks at the challenge of providing healthy diets in urban environments in low and middle-income countries, presenting eight recommendations directed primarily at policymakers especially those working at the sub-national level.
Attended by Global Panel Members Akinwumi Adesina, President, African Development Bank and 2017 World Food Prize laureate; Agnes Kalibata, President, Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa; Tom Arnold, Former Director General, Institute of International and European Affairs; and Emmy Simmons, Senior Adviser, Non-resident, to the Center for Strategic and International Studies Global Food Security Project; former Assistant Administrator, US Agency for International Development.

66 per cent of the world’s population is projected to be urban by 2050. The additional 2.5 billion urban residents will live primarily in Africa and Asia. This is leading to a growing crisis of urban malnutrition.

“There is an urgent need for better urban governance around food, nutrition and health”, said Adesina. “Urban populations need improved information on how to live well by eating well.”

The brief gives particular focus to the growing threat of diet-related non-communicable disease. The greater wealth in urban centres, relative to rural areas, does not necessarily lead to healthier diets, with excessive consumption of highly-processed foods that are high in calories but low in nutrients. Emmy Simmons argues that “within complex, diverse urban environments, poor dietary choices could create a further financial burden, with rising levels of overweight or obesity generating increases in the health care costs associated with non-communicable diseases”.

The eight recommendations in the brief call for a wider policy approach which integrates actions from food, agriculture and nutrition into urban planning, education, health, sanitation, water and infrastructure development. It will also require a shift in attitudes towards the informal food sector and the collection of better data on urban diets.

The brief shows how policymakers at the local level need to champion better diets and nutrition, but this requires them to be both mandated and empowered to act. Panel Member Tom Arnold argues that these “public policymakers need to recognise that productivity, quality of life and life expectancy in urban areas will revolve around healthy diets and lifestyles.”

Without decisive action, the Global Panel argues that this urban malnutrition crisis will deepen. This is especially important in many low and middle-income countries where urban dwellers do not consume enough basic calories, lack sufficient micronutrients, or suffer from being overweight or obese with associated diet-related non-communicable diseases, leading to a ‘triple burden of urban malnutrition’. As Dr. Kalibata recently stated, “The growing threat of an urban food crisis can no longer be ignored”.
Isaac Oyimah/GEE
... Linking agrobiz, sustainable environs, people & technology