WHO accelerates work on nutrition targets with new commitments

 WHO accelerates work on nutrition targets with new commitments.

WHO accelerates work on nutrition targets with new commitments

COVID-19 and climate change have exacerbated malnutrition in all its forms and threatened the sustainability and resilience of food systems around the world. At the Nutrition for Growth Summit held in Tokyo on December 7-8, 2021, the World Health Organization announced six new commitments to accelerate progress towards nutrition goals at the horizon 2025, which the pandemic has made even more difficult to achieve:

expand initiatives to prevent and manage overweight and obesity;

do more to create a food supply that supports safe and healthy diets;

help countries address acute malnutrition;

take action more quickly to combat anemia;

further promote and support quality breastfeeding; and

strengthen nutrition data systems, data use and capacity.

Today, a third of the world's population is affected by at least one form of malnutrition. More than 40% of men and women (2.2 billion people) are currently overweight or obese, and unhealthy diets are linked to at least eight million deaths a year.

“Malnutrition in all its forms is one of the leading causes of death and disease worldwide. WHO is committed to supporting all countries to progressively expand access to essential nutrition services as part of achieving universal health coverage and to strengthening sustainable food systems for healthy diets for all. everyone, everywhere,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of WHO.

Despite a gradual decline in all forms of malnutrition over the past decade, worsening inequalities, climate crises, conflicts and global health insecurity have slowed progress.

The multiple consequences of malnutrition (stunting, wasting, micronutrient deficiencies, obesity and diet-related non-communicable diseases) increasingly coexist within the same community, the same household and even in the same anybody. On current trends, one in two people will suffer from malnutrition by 2025 and around 40 million children will be obese or overweight in the next decade.

In marginalized communities, child malnutrition and food insecurity are on the rise. Last year, 149 million children suffered from stunting due to poor nutrition, lack of access to clean water and health services, and other accessibility issues. Among the deaths of children under five, undernutrition was the cause in 45% of cases.

Although there are signs of progress – as the world is on track to meet the global goal of increasing exclusive breastfeeding by 2025 – the COVID-19 pandemic has fueled the nutrition crisis. Women and children have been particularly affected, and the pandemic has led to unprecedented hardship and a diversion of resources from global nutrition systems, including health, food, social protection and humanitarian aid infrastructure. .

“Today, less than 1% of global development aid is devoted to nutrition. Faster action is needed to end unhealthy diets and malnutrition, and the new commitments made by WHO at the Nutrition for Growth Summit demonstrate this. This summit is a great opportunity to act faster during the Decade of Action on Nutrition 2016-2025,” said Dr Francesco Branca, Director of the Department of Nutrition and Food Safety at WHO.

WHO continues to work in the three important priority areas of nutrition for growth (health, food and resilience) by strengthening normative guidance and supporting countries to apply it; monitoring and ensuring access to nutrition data; supporting governments and decision makers to integrate nutrition and food systems interventions into national universal health coverage plans, multisectoral systems and budget policies; and continuously responding to emergency situations.