Challenges and impacts of poor nutrition

Never has there been a more urgent time to ensure that everyone has optimal nutrition. However, globally, that has not been realised. While some indicators of global health are improving, nutrition is not. Undernutrition is decreasing but way too slowly. Overweight and obesity are rising, rapidly. What we are left with is a massive, complex burden of multiple malnutrition outcomes, as a result of multiple drivers and causes. The consequences are staggering not only for the health and wellbeing of individuals, but economically, socially and environmentally they are costly for society. Twenty-two per cent, or 150 million, children under the age of five are chronically undernourished, or stunted; 50 million children are wasted or acutely malnourished with high risk of mortality; and on the opposite side 38 million children are overweight. At this rate, global progress to reduce these forms of malnutrition is not rapid enough to meet internationally agreed global targets. Adult overweight and obesity prevalence is shocking. Over 2 billion people are overweight and obese and that number is rising in all countries from low- to high-income classifications. Obesity is a significant risk factor of diet-related noncommunicable diseases including diabetes, cardiovascular disease and some cancers. Many countries are grappling with multiple burdens of malnutrition. What actions do we need to take to address this massive burden and who should act? We have known for a long time that nutrition takes many sectors and disciplines to eradicate the multiple burdens. There is nothing new to this. What is new is how we can we deliver on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, the SDGs, which call on the world to approach development differently, through shared action. That is, to see development across the goals as part of an integrated whole and that each goal is essential for what we, as global citizens, would agree is a better, more equitable world. It is not just about what other sectors can do for us in the nutrition community to deliver our goals, but what we can do for them in delivering their goals. Food systems allow many points for intervention to improve nutrition – across the supply chain, within food environments and related to consumer behaviour. However, food systems are not static. They are rapidly transforming due to multiple drivers, including global dietary pattern shifts. With globalisation, urbanisation and income growth, people are experiencing new food environments, expanding their food choices and diversifying their dietary patterns in both positive and negative directions. Current food systems have dramatic effects on human and planetary health. They shape producers’ decisions and consumers’ food choices. Nevertheless, human decisions and choices and consumers’ food choices. Nevertheless, human decisions and choices This paper has been prepared from a transcript and the illustrative slides of the presentation. (whether individual or collective) regarding production and consumption can also influence food systems and improve their ability to deliver healthy and sustainable diets. The global community should embrace the SDGs as interlinked and address simultaneously all forms of malnutrition. This will require everyone who interacts with food systems and the food security mandate to act. Food supply chain and food environment actors, whether small or large, need to be valued and supported to shift towards nutrition- sensitive agriculture and food systems.