What are the top three priority actions on nutrition within each of the six Action Areas that should be prioritized by stakeholders going forward, in order to make a difference in nutrition and contribute to ending all forms of malnutrition?
Action Area 1: Sustainable, resilient food systems for healthy diets.
Scale up the inclusion of nutrition objectives in food and agriculture policies: increase production of context-appropriate fruits and vegetables for domestic consumption, and of legumes and pulses that contribute to healthy diets; raise production of oils in support of the elimination of industrially produced trans-fat in the food supply.
Accelerate food reformulation: provide reference ranges for sodium reduction level benchmarks for processed foods, including takeaway foods.
Subsidise the price of cereals, legumes, vegetables and fruits which are produced locally and sustainably.
Action Area 2: Aligned health systems providing universal coverage of essential nutrition actions.
Research is needed on the most cost-effective nutrition care services available for primary health care. Our recent research (under review) has shown that nutrition care is considered value adding but requires policy makers to invest in the additional services. Further research/guidance would be appreciating on the most effective ways to influence policymakers on this point.
Equitable access to nationally determined health services, including oral health and mental health services
Subsidise medicines to ensure they are affordable, particularly for the poor, vulnerable and marginalised segments of the population.
Action Area 3: Social protection and nutrition education.
There is significant opportunity for all health workers to improve nutrition competence (knowledge skills and attitudes) as well as an increase in nutrition professionals. Our research has shown that doctors, nurses, psychologists, even personal trainers and coaches are looking to embrace nutrition as part of their ongoing role. Globally relevant, minimum acceptable standards of competence is the next required piece of work on this and we are ready to conduct this work if there is support made available by the UN. We would also recommend mandating the inclusion of nutrition education in school curricula to enable the incorporation and learning of what constitutes a healthy diet.
Action Area 4: Trade and investment for improved nutrition.
Develop international guidance on front-of-pack nutrition labelling
Increased investments to rebuild/further develop regional food processing, manufacturing and distribution infrastructure
Reduce global exports of primary produce, such as unprocessed fruits and vegetables.
Action Area 5: Safe and supportive environments for nutrition at all ages.
Legal protection and support of breastfeeding in public places including the workplace and hospitals.
Improve access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation, in particular in low to middle-income countries
Increase the use of regulatory and fiscal tools in improving the food environment. In particular, the taxation of ultra-processed foods.
Action Area 6: Strengthened governance and accountability for nutrition.
Governments to establish national nutrition targets with milestones to achieve priority actions within the Nutrition Decade.
Governments to establish or update a national food and nutrition policy.
Increased investments into nutrition and health-related research.
Priority focus areas are being tentatively proposed as per the table below. Please indicate if any key elements are missing. Please note that the online survey inquires more specifically about the priority focus areas:
Increase the use of regulatory and fiscal tools in improving the food environment. In particular, the taxation of ultra-processed foods.
Increased investments to rebuild/further develop regional food processing, manufacturing and distribution infrastructure
Mandate the inclusion of nutrition education in health professionals curricula
Mandate the inclusion of nutrition education in school curricula
Raise the global minimum wage.
Which are key cross-cutting actions that would facilitate interlinkages and create synergies between Action Areas?
Nutrition education is a cross-cutting action that would facilitate interlinkages and create synergies between Action Areas. Nutrition education for the health workforce is vital for nutrition capacity. Without nutrition education, health care workers cannot effectively deliver nutrition action across the health care continuum. Furthermore, as the FAO have stated, there must be better leverage of schools as a platform for food and nutrition education. Mandating the inclusion of nutrition education in health professionals and school curricula would create synergies between Action Areas and likely improve population nutrition behaviour.
What do you think are the top three emerging issues and/or trends likely to hamper the achievement of the global nutrition targets? What would you like to see done to address them?
The unaffordability of healthy food – use regulatory and fiscal tools to subsidise locally produced foods and apply a tax to ultra-processed and takeaway foods.
Social inequity – raise global minimum wage and provide equitable access to free health care including oral health and mental health services.
Nutrition capacity of the health workforce – it has been well-established that there is a need to improve the nutrition capacity of the medical and health workforce so that they are able to provide nutrition interventions and improve the nutrition behaviour of the population.
Ms. Mayara De Paula
What are the top three priority actions on nutrition within each of the six Action Areas that should be prioritized by stakeholders going forward, in order to make a difference in nutrition and contribute to ending all forms of malnutrition?
Action Area 1: Sustainable, resilient food systems for healthy diets.
Action Area 2: Aligned health systems providing universal coverage of essential nutrition actions.
Action Area 3: Social protection and nutrition education.
There is significant opportunity for all health workers to improve nutrition competence (knowledge skills and attitudes) as well as an increase in nutrition professionals. Our research has shown that doctors, nurses, psychologists, even personal trainers and coaches are looking to embrace nutrition as part of their ongoing role. Globally relevant, minimum acceptable standards of competence is the next required piece of work on this and we are ready to conduct this work if there is support made available by the UN. We would also recommend mandating the inclusion of nutrition education in school curricula to enable the incorporation and learning of what constitutes a healthy diet.
Action Area 4: Trade and investment for improved nutrition.
Action Area 5: Safe and supportive environments for nutrition at all ages.
Action Area 6: Strengthened governance and accountability for nutrition.
Priority focus areas are being tentatively proposed as per the table below. Please indicate if any key elements are missing. Please note that the online survey inquires more specifically about the priority focus areas:
Which are key cross-cutting actions that would facilitate interlinkages and create synergies between Action Areas?
Nutrition education is a cross-cutting action that would facilitate interlinkages and create synergies between Action Areas. Nutrition education for the health workforce is vital for nutrition capacity. Without nutrition education, health care workers cannot effectively deliver nutrition action across the health care continuum. Furthermore, as the FAO have stated, there must be better leverage of schools as a platform for food and nutrition education. Mandating the inclusion of nutrition education in health professionals and school curricula would create synergies between Action Areas and likely improve population nutrition behaviour.
What do you think are the top three emerging issues and/or trends likely to hamper the achievement of the global nutrition targets? What would you like to see done to address them?