International Experts And Civil Society Groups Want Tobacco-Style Global Treaty To Tackle Poor Diets
by Sangeeta Haindl
In a global show of support for increased efforts to tackle diet-related ill health, leading health campaigners and consumer advocates from across the world have publically endorsed calls for a tobacco-style Global Convention to protect and promote healthy diets. As the world’s governments gathered in Rome on 17 November for a conference that addressed malnutrition, they sent an open letter to the heads of the World Health Organisation (WHO) and Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (UN) calling for a binding treaty, urging greater action to protect and promote healthy diets.
The letter states that ‘the governance of food production and distribution cannot be left to economic interests alone,’ and urges governments to take regulatory action to reduce children’s exposure to marketing, to impose compositional limits on the saturated fat, added sugar and sodium content of food, to bring in fiscal measures to discourage the consumption of unhealthy foods, and to require all trade and investment policies to be assessed for their potential health impacts. The letter calls for a similar mechanism to the Framework Convention for Tobacco Control, which has been successful in reducing tobacco use.
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Photo Credit: Pink Sherbet Photography
Sangeeta Haindl writes on social innovation, social enterprise, and social entrepreneurs. She is the owner of Serendipity PR, in London, U.K., where she works with high-profile brands and organizations in the public, non-profit, and corporate sectors, winning awards for her work from the communications industry. She describes herself as a Spiritual Entrepreneur, Conscious Explorer, and Futurist. She enjoys helping others, paying it forward, and being a mum.
