“Tougher measures against obesity”: FAO Director-General receives Nutrition Inspiration award

29 Jul 2019 --- Tougher measures to combat the global obesity pandemic are imperative, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Director-General José Graziano da Silva. Urging the use of concrete fiscal and legal policies to promote healthier diets, da Silva made his strongest appeal yet during the 2018 World Food Prize awards ceremony. The Director-General was honored with the Nutrition Inspiration Award for his lifelong “ambition not only to reduce malnutrition but eradicate it.” The prize from the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), is given to an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to improving global nutrition.

The news comes at the heels of FAO’s inauguration of the World Sustainable Urban Food Centre (CEMAS). The center is a joint initiative of FAO and the city of Valencia, Spain, to strengthen, advise and coordinate cities around the world in the management and exchange of knowledge on sustainable, local food systems. 

“There are already more obese people than hungry people in the world. People are increasingly eating badly and the main reason is that current food systems encourage the consumption of ultra-processed foods, which are high in salt, sugar, saturated fats and artificial ingredients,” says da Silva, warning of the rising obesity “pandemic” in five continents.

“It is difficult to find and buy healthy food in our cities today,” da Silva notes, adding that there are numerous policy tools to improve the accessibility and affordability of healthier diets.

Director-General José Graziano da Silva speaks in FAO's Sheikh Zayed Centre. Credit: FAO/Giulio Napolitano

Da Silva “has a personal, national and global track record in fighting hunger and he has inspired others to follow his lead” says Lawrence Haddad, Executive Director of GAIN, which, since its 2002 launch, has worked with partners, stakeholders and policymakers to support making healthier food choices more affordable, more available and more desirable.

“Graziano da Silva made nutrition a strategic priority for FAO,” says Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), who also added that he looked forward to “building on Graziano da Silva’s legacy” with Qu Dongyu, who succeeds da Silva at FAO’s helm at the end of this month.

Unhealthy diets and malnutrition are responsible for almost one in every three deaths, and non-communicable diseases, driven largely by poor diets, cost the world more than US$7 trillion each year, Ghebreyesus notes. “A business-as usual-approach will only lead to worse health, more environmental problems and larger costs,” he adds. “This is the challenge we must face together.”

The citation also notes da Silva’s commitment and achievements as Special Minister for Food Security in Brazil, as well as later ones during his two terms leading FAO, where he pioneered partnerships and dialogue between the public and private sectors. “His personal influence has secured political commitment at the highest levels to the cause of ending hunger and malnutrition,” the award notes.

The event included a panel chaired by David Nabarro, a longtime senior UN civil servant who is currently Curator of Food Systems Dialogues, which promotes and convenes high-profile opportunities for a broad range of stakeholders to meet and foster understanding, encourage alignments and accelerate the sustainable transformation of food systems. Nabarro and Haddad won the prestigious World Food Prize last year.

Leading figures of key strategic partners of FAO, including Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition (GLOPAN), NCD Alliance and Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN), also spoke at the event.

Focus on quality diet
The award was given in the context of a panel discussion focusing on FAO’s recent work in the fight against hunger and the future challenges posed by the increasing world population, rapid urbanization and changing diets, especially in low- and middle-income countries.

In recent years, FAO has pushed nutrition higher up the global agenda, holding a major international conference on nutrition that led to the Rome Declaration on Nutrition – an accompanying technical Framework for Action to guide its implementation – and advocating for the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition. During his eight years at FAO, da Silva systematically noted that the world produces enough food to feed everyone but this has not led to the end of hunger. Additionally, more complex nutrition problems, such as obesity and diet-driven diseases, loom today.

He also brought focus on how local and national governments have tools to improve food systems. Citing Mexico’s sugar tax as an example, he noted that pricing and subsidy policies can be tweaked and that cities can promote local circuits so that not only “hot dogs and burgers” are available. “The invisible hand of the market has a lot of hands behind it,” he added.

Edited by Kristiana Lalou