Articles

Improved food environments for healthy diets and enhanced nutrition

Qin, Yong-jun; Pingault, Nathanaƫl; Ricci, Fabio; Fanzo, Jessica C.

As illustrated by the High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition of the UN Committee on World Food Security (HLPE 2017), while hunger is on the rise again, malnutrition now takes multiple forms and affects all countries. Globally, 821 million people are still undernourished (FAO et al. 2018), over 2 billion people suffer from micronutrient deficiencies, while overweight and obesity are quickly rising which affects 1.9 billion adults and 41 million children under five.

The HLPE, in many of its publications, called for radical transformations in our current food systems to address the multiple burdens of malnutrition. There is already enough evidence to act. The short-term cost of action may seem high, but the cost of inaction is likely to be much higher, carrying with it a terrible legacy affecting future generations.

The HLPE (2017) identified three core elements in food systems (food supply chains, food environments and consumer behaviour, see Fig. 1). Among these three elements, the HLPE illustrated the central role of food environments in shaping consumer behaviour and food choices and, finally, in determining diets and nutrition.

Files

  • thumnail for Qin et al. - 2019 - Improved food environments for healthy diets and e.pdf Qin et al. - 2019 - Improved food environments for healthy diets and e.pdf application/pdf 433 KB Download File

Also Published In

Title
Journal of Integrative Agriculture
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1016/S2095-3119(19)62678-X

More About This Work

Academic Units
International Research Institute for Climate and Society
Published Here
February 7, 2024