Nutritional well-being is influenced now more than ever by globalization, trade liberalization, urbanization and dietary transition. Collectively, these trends have had a profound influence on diets and nutritional status in many developing countries, particularly the Caribbean, where significant changes in eating habits have emerged over the past few decades. Analysis and further understanding of the impact of these changes on the people of the Caribbean is a very important preliminary step in the development of food and nutrition policies at the national level. Food and nutrition surveys are the primary tools used to analyze and understand dietary changes and nutritional status.
Dietary change in the Caribbean has generally been characterized by less reliance on domestically produced traditional commodities and foods, such as root crops and fruits, and greater reliance on imported commodities, fast foods, animal products and refined carbohydrates. As diets have changed throughout the region, so too has the impact on public health. Dietary patterns throughout the Caribbean are increasingly linked to a higher incidence of non-communicable chronic diseases (NCDs) - strokes, heart disease, diabetes and cancer - and have become a major public health challenge and one of the primary causes of most deaths in the Caribbean today. Understanding the link between diet and health, is now more than ever before, of vital importance to policy makers and researchers.
Policy-makers and planners recognize that food consumption surveys reveal valuable socioeconomic information as well as dietary preferences of targeted groups. The purpose of this publication is to help bridge the gap between analyzing survey results and actively developing well coordinated, holistic approaches to formulate food and nutrition policies at the national or regional level. This publication furthers our understanding of how nutritional well-being may be challenged and is changing in the Caribbean. The methodological framework underlying consumption and nutrition surveys and the collection, analysis and use of relevant dietary, anthropometric and food security information, as presented in this publication, builds on the past work and experience of FAO and CFNI.
Overall, the core objectives of both Organizations are the same. We want to help and improve household food and nutrition security through effective decision-making by policy makers and technical staff in government ministries, NGOs and research institutions, public and private. We want to ensure that these policies incorporate the best and most recent information available on the quality and adequacy of the diet of the Caribbean people. We hope that this publication supports national and regional initiatives to improve nutrition well-being in the Caribbean, and that it ultimately contributes to the formulation of an effective and helpful food and nutrition policy
Kraisid Tontisirin
Director,
Food and Nutrition
Division, FAO
People in the Caribbean have drastically altered their traditional diets in the last few decades and have also adopted a more sedentary lifestyle. These observations are central to the changing disease and health profile in the region.
That food consumption information is vital to planning the future of Caribbean health is no longer in doubt. What is less clear is the strategy needed to transfer the findings from such nutrition surveys into programs and policy action. While many manuals are available on how to conduct food consumption and anthropometric surveys, few discuss at length the critical aspect of how to apply the results to effectively alter the adverse behaviors studied. There is also poor follow-up of the recommended guidelines that emanate from these studies. This book, in presenting the key components of food consumption and anthropometric surveys, importantly examines the extent to which results were applied in the Caribbean.
Research has shown that investments in appropriate food and nutrition programs can substantially improve health, economic growth and development. Decision makers are not generally aware of this knowledge and many well-intentioned programs fall short of the financial and political support required. All too often policy makers look only at the effects of food policy decisions on production, but less on consumption and nutrition. This publication highlights the need to link those decisions to appropriate data from food consumption and nutrition surveys.
How can this link be made? Among the various barriers two major issues emerge. Firstly, there is clearly a lack of connection between those working at the survey level and those working at the macro policy level. Constructive dialogue between these groups needs to be forged. Secondly, research nutritionists are usually trained in a narrow discipline and have little appreciation of politics, while policy makers often have broad political experience but little technical knowledge. Here again dialogue can bridge this gap somewhat. This publication seeks to provide the rationale for such a dialogue by attempting to link disciplines and sectors in the context of programs and food policy analysis.
This document is an expression of the shared commitment of FAO and CFNI to improve the nutritional and health status of people in the Caribbean by (1) demonstrating the potential uses of food consumption and anthropometric surveys and (2) outlining methodologies to obtain information on, and insights into, food and nutrition problems and possible strategies to stimulate actions to combat them. We hope this publication will command the interest and attention of both researchers and planners throughout the region and beyond
Fitzroy J. Henry
Director, CFNI
