Malnutrition and unhealthy diets are important risk factors for non-communicable diseases. Francesco Branca and colleagues call for changes in both what and how food is produced, marketed, and consumed in their latest articleTransforming the food system to fight non-communicable diseases.

Key messages

  • Poor quality diets, malnutrition in all its forms, and NCDs are closely linked. Unhealthy diets are now the biggest risk factor for NCDs
  • Poor quality diets, malnutrition, and NCDs are the logical consequences of, among other factors, major changes to how food is produced, sold, marketed, and consumed around the world in the past half century
  • Transformation of current food systems to improve availability, affordability, and uptake of nutritious, safe, affordable, and sustainable diets is key to tackling malnutrition in all its forms and diet related NCDs
  • Policy options to tackle the different forms of malnutrition and diet related NCDs can also help create food systems that are sustainable, benefitting planetary health
  • The United Nations Decade of Action on Nutrition, along with the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda and Goals, are a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to simultaneously and cost effectively improve diets, eliminate malnutrition, reduce death and disability from NCDs, and promote sustainable development

Download the full article here.

A major focus on boosting the agricultural sectors in Africa is needed to ensure a better future for the continent’s youth who, if given the chance, can be the drivers of development, FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva said while inaugurating the Africa Center for Climate and Sustainable Development.
The situation in the eight places in the world with the highest number of people in need of emergency food support shows that the link between conflict and hunger remains all too persistent and deadly, according to a new report released today by FAO and WFP for the UN Security Council.

28-29 January 2019
Geneva, Switzerland

As part of the SUN Movement’s stewardship arrangements, the SUN Movement Executive Committee acts on behalf of the SUN Movement Lead Group to oversee the development and implementation of the Movement’s strategy.

More info available here

Malnutrition in all its forms, including obesity, undernutrition, and other dietary risks, is the leading cause of poor health globally. In the near future, the health effects of climate change will considerably compound these health challenges. Climate change can be considered a pandemic because of its sweeping effects on the health of humans and the natural systems we depend on (ie, planetary health). These three pandemics—obesity, undernutrition, and climate change—represent The Global Syndemic that affects most people in every country and region worldwide. They constitute a syndemic, or synergy of epidemics, because they co-occur in time and place, interact with each other to produce complex sequelae, and share common underlying societal drivers.

This Commission recommends comprehensive actions to address obesity within the context of The Global Syndemic, which represents the paramount health challenge for humans, the environment, and our planet in the 21st century.

To access The Global Syndemic of Obesity, Undernutrition, and Climate Change Hub page at The Lancet, click here. For the full report, click here. 

To be in good health, individuals require nutritious food, high-quality water, physical activity, adequate sleep, and a living environment devoid of germs and toxic contaminants. An imbalance in any of these factors may manifest in one or more forms of malnutrition including being undernourished or becoming overweight or obese. 

The term double burden of malnutrition (DBM) connotes a situation where at least two or more forms of malnutrition coexist at individual, household, or national levels and at different points in an individual’s life. The IAEA supports countries in applying stable isotope techniques to assess key indicators associated with the DBM and to evaluate the impact of corrective actions to address it, thereby contributing to evidence-based policy formulation.

To learn more about their work, and to download your copy of the IAEA Brief: Stable Isotope Techniques Help to Address the Double Burden of Malnutrition, visit here.

 

The 9th Nutritional & Health-related Environmental Studies Newsletter features the following articles.

Meeting outcomes

  • International Symposium on Understanding the Double Burden of Malnutrition for Effective Interventions
  • Stable isotopes and the double burdens of disease and malnutrition: reflections from the 8th African Nutritional Epidemiology Conference
  • 62nd IAEA General Conference: Botswana shares results on body composition and anaemia among children living in malaria prone-areas
  • Interregional project (INT/6/058) using stable isotopes to improve the evidence base for stunting reduction programmes worldwide

New publications

  • IAEA Brief: Stable Isotope Techniques Help to Address the Double Burden of Malnutrition
  • IAEA Video: Improving Health with Atomic Precision in Mauritius
  • IAEA Doubly Labelled Water Database
  • Assessment of Zinc Metabolism in Humans Using Stable Zinc Isotope Techniques
  • Body mass index vs deuterium dilution method in African children
  • IAEA’s role in fighting micronutrient malnutrition

Success stories

  • A nuclear technique helps Seychelles to identify key drivers of overweight and obesity in school children

This edition also features a NAHRES Special article entitled The future of food systems by the UNSCN.

You can download you copy here.

It is imperative to scale up policies and investments in the Middle East and North Africa to make water use in agriculture more sustainable and efficient and to ensure that all the people in the region have access to healthy diets, FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva said today.

On 8 November 2018, the Ministry of Health of Brazil announced the launch of two new Action Networks in the Region of the Americas, in partnerships with the Ministries of Health of other countries, under the umbrella of the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition: the Action Network on Strategies for Reducing Salt Consumption for the Prevention and Control of Cardiovascular Disease and the Action Network on Food Guidelines. The first Action Network has the goal to work towards meeting the World Health Assembly global targets from reducing risk factors for NCDs while the second Action Network aims to support countries in the development, implementation, monitoring and assessment of guidelines that deal with the level of food processing. More information available here.

Meanwhile, an Action Network on nutrition labelling is being established, led by France and Australia, with the purpose to accelerate action, share technical expertise among countries in implementing nutrition labelling and review and generate more evidence on the effectiveness and limitations of different front-of-pack labelling systems.

Issue 11 of Nutrition Exchange features some common themes of networks and coordination for nutrition, including a short article on the commitments made by Brazil, Ecuador and Italy under the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition (available at pages 28-29).

Nutrition Exchange is an ENN publication that contains short, non-technical and easy-to-read articles on nutrition programme experiences and learning, from countries with a high burden of undernutrition and those that are prone to crisis. It also summarises research and provides information on guidance, tools and upcoming trainings in nutrition and related sectors. It is published twice per year and one issue is dedicated to Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement related learning and experiences of scale up which is facilitated by the ENN SUN Knowledge Management Project regional and Global team.  

NEX is available in English, French, Arabic and Spanish.