WHO urges governments to promote healthy food in public facilities
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has urged governments to promote healthy food in public places, such as schools, childcare centres, nursing homes, hospitals and correctional facilities, and all other canteens of public institutions.
WHO, in a statement posted on its website, stated that promotion of healthy food in public places could play a key role in ensuring people are provided with healthy food.
The UN health Agency stated that such effort would also help to prevent the eight million annual deaths currently caused by unhealthy diets.
It stated that the agency on Tuesday launched a new WHO Action framework for developing and implementing public food procurement and service policies for a healthy diet.
“The framework aims to increase the availability of healthy food through setting nutrition criteria for food served and sold in public settings.
“The action framework also aims to reduce preventable diseases and deaths from high consumption of sodium and salt, sugars and fats, particularly trans fats, and inadequate consumption of whole grains, legumes, vegetables and fruit.’’
The statement quoted Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, as saying,“ Public places that serve the entire community, including our most vulnerable populations, must be places where healthy diets are promoted, not discouraged.
“Now is the time for governments to lead by example through ensuring that the food served or sold in public settings contributes to healthy diets and saves lives.
“No public funds should be spent on food contributing to unhealthy diets.”
According to the statement, consuming a healthy diet from pre-birth to the last days of life is vital to prevent all forms of malnutrition as well as diabetes, cancers and other non-communicable diseases (NCDs).
“The new action framework serves as a tool for governments to develop, implement, monitor and evaluate public food procurement and service policies that align with the core principles of healthy diets as outlined in existing WHO recommendations:
“Limit sodium consumption and ensure that salt is iodized; limit the intake of free sugars; shift fat consumption from saturated fats to unsaturated fats and eliminate industrially-produced trans fats.
“Also increase consumption of whole grains, vegetables, fruit, nuts and pulses; and ensure the availability of free, safe drinking water.’’
In addition, it stated that healthy public food procurement and service policies set nutrition criteria for food served and sold in public settings.
“These policies increase the availability of foods that promote healthy diets and/or limit or prohibit the availability of foods that contribute to unhealthy diets.
“Policies can cover the entire process of purchase, provision, distribution, preparation, service, and sale of food to ensure each step meets healthy criteria.
“A number of countries worldwide have already taken steps to promote healthy diets in public facilities.’’
The statement further quoted Dr Tom Frieden, President and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives, an Initiative of Vital Strategies, as saying, “Governments worldwide have a responsibility to lead by example.
“Governments worldwide have a responsibility to lead by example by serving and selling food that improve the health of their people.
“This action framework is an opportunity to make healthy food choices the default choices at a large scale.”
In September, the UN Food Systems Summit 2021 will launch bold new actions to transform the way the world produces and consumes food, delivering progress on all 17 SDGs.
WHO is the UN anchor agency for Action Track two aiming to shift to sustainable consumption patterns and facilitate a transition of diets towards more nutritious foods that require fewer resources to produce and transport.
The world’s governments have already made multiple commitments to end all forms of malnutrition, including obesity and diet-related NCDs such as hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and cancer.
This Action Framework helps reach targets that fall under the Sustainable Development Goals of ending malnutrition (SDG 2), promoting health and wellbeing (SDG 3) and promoting sustainable public procurement practices (SDG 12) by 2030.
