The Nutrition in Focus in the Year 2019
Poor nutrition is a key driver and risk factor for disease. However, there has been a global failure to address this. It is everyone’s and no-one’s problem.
I hope that the New Year 2019 has started well for you! There have been usual winter diseases spread around: cold, viruses or even flu. Many people around us suffer from some of the symptoms (including myself) but the immune systems are fighting back and resisting more serious attacks.
I believe that the good nutrition contributes very much to our health in general. This topic has been described in several of our blogs, from different perspectives and approaches:
Free-from-food-in-wellbes-offer
Stay-diabetes-free-with-long-term-weight-down
Organic-food and so on
Today I read an interesting article about the nutrition challenges in The Lancet magazine which struck my attention. The intention is that, during this year, scientists should focus on the several aspects of nutrition that affect the world today. It seems that the problems are not close to being resolved yet nor in the near future.
We will follow with great interest the development of the discussion and arguments in The Lancet that the top world experts in food and nutrition will exchange and present during the year dedicated to this world issue. Despite the food potential that exists on the planet we still struggle with the need to provide a growing global population with a healthy diet whilst at the same time defining sustainable food systems that will minimise damage to our planet.
The group of scientists will also examine and study the universal healthy reference diet. It should be based on an increase in consumption of healthy foods (such as vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, and nuts), and a decrease in consumption of unhealthy foods (such as red meat, sugar, salt and refined grains) that would provide major health benefits.
Poor nutrition is a key driver and risk factor for disease. However, there has been a global failure to address this. It is everyone’s and no-one’s problem. Despite several efforts, actions for improving nutrition have failed to gain global attraction.
The Lancet sees new knowledge as an important lever for accelerating political commitment to address poor nutrition.
The subject that is planned to be addressed first is the obesity problem which needs to encompass a much broader approach than has been the case so far because the attempts to stem the worldwide increase of obesity (with a focus on obesity alone) have failed. The other challenges are undernutrition and climate change, which interact and affect human and planetary health.
The nutrition issue of the young population, as well as the ageing generations, needs far more attention, and the promotion of scientific advice that will benefit people and planet alike.
Sources:
https://www.thelancet.com/commissions/EAT?dgcid=etoc-edschoice_email_tleat19
https://now.tufts.edu/articles/nutrition-challenges-we-age
