action to end all forms of malnutrition by 2030, for attaining the internationally agreed targets on stunting and wasting in children under 5 years and, for addressing the specific nutritional needs of adolescent girls, pregnant, and lactating women.
Moreover, at least 12 of the 17 goals also contain indicators that are highly relevant for nutrition. This leads me to my third remark. None of the different SDGs can be achieved by treating each goal separately. Aiming at improved nutrition, achieving nutrition security as well as nutrition quality urges us to consider a wide range of aspects – from diversified and sustainable agriculture to food systems that care for the transportation and processing of food while preserving its quality. We need to consider the availability of good food for consumers at affordable prices throughout the year. And, of course, we need to consider issues such as health, sanitation, education, environmental challenges, gender issues, cultural issues, and rights issues. Improved nutrition is a truly multi-sector issue.
Nutrition Quality
What does talking about nutrition and nutrition quality mean? It means that we talk about the food we eat, about calories, the energy we need and take in every day, about safe food and about quality standards, about labelling and information on content and origin, about diet, a diet more or less diverse, a diet which is good or bad for us. So, when we are talking about nutrition, it is not just about what we eat. It is about how we eat and why we eat this way or that and how we think about our nutrition [3–5]. We are talking about us, about ourselves, about our lifestyles, our skills to handle food and meals, our behaviors in general and our nutritional behaviors in particular, and also about the conditions we live in.
This means that the quality of our nutrition, whether our diet is healthy or not, whether “it is health promoting” or not, significantly depends on how we live, how we learn, what we know about ourselves and about nutrition, whether we are able and motivated to act in a way that is appropriate for us, and whether we develop a lifestyle which fits our needs and allows us to nourish ourselves accordingly.
Physical activity is an important issue in that context [6]. Yet, knowledge and motivation are not sufficient. It is equally important to create both the physical and the social opportunity, which enable me to actually do what I am motivated to do. In fact, behavior emerges from the interaction between 3 necessary conditions: knowledge, motivation, and opportunity.
The Role of Public Partners
It is a complex task. Therefore, you need partners to move forward. Before describing more concretely the role of public partners, let me discuss a bit more in detail, who the partners are and what talking about a multi-actor approach actually means. It does not mean that all the partners have to do everything together. The roadmap to success rather asks us to identify different tasks and to attribute specific responsibilities to different partners. And at the same time – and this is the essence of a multi-actor approach – the roadmap to success asks us to create platforms which encourage dialogue and stimulate innovative energies that derive from this exchange among different actors at equal levels.
The actors are manifold. Among them are producers, processors, and trading companies acting individually or as a group, each of them looking at the issue from their point of view and following their own interests. There are consumers, too, also acting either as individuals or as a group. There are scientists from different academic sectors. And there are extension and field services, teachers, social and medical services.
All these actors must be committed to a continued, coherent, and sustainable action on local, regional, country, and/or global level. Of course, public partners are also involved as well as states, regions and their administrations, supranational and international organizations. However, they are not just another part of this big puzzle of actors involved. Their task is different. It is up to them to lay down the basic legal rules, aiming at a level playing field for the fruitful cooperation of all actors.
It is up to countries and regions to establish the rules to comply with and which solve conflicts of interest, establish standards for cooperation and conduct, ensure the transparency of processes, as well as equal treatment and representation and look for the appropriate discussion of the various different aspects. It is up to the public partners to stimulate and moderate the trans-sectorial and multi-disciplinary action to improve the nutritional standard of people in a given area.
This does not mean that the public partners should dominate the process in a top-down manner. Public partners will never be suited to do so, as they will never know better and already ex ante what needs to be done. Public partners need input from other actors. They need to understand and they need to get the large picture, empowering them to play this stimulating, moderating, and facilitating role with the necessary authority.
Empowering and Protecting People
However, the task of public partners goes beyond that, as the process has a goal. An individual person takes a responsible decision regarding the kind of nutrition that is appropriate for his or her needs. So we are talking about empowering and protecting people [7]. Only when people know more about their needs can they decide which quality of nutrition suits them. People must also be protected against misleading advertising and baseless product disclosures. Only then will they be less dependent on claims and will rely more on their knowledge and their capacity to take decisions. Only then can they assess the effects of their nutritional habits on the food chain as well as on the environment, health, and social structures.
Therefore, public partners need to ensure legislation, where needed, especially on labelling to ensure transparency and to avoid that consumers are being misled. They need to ensure that nutrition education and nutrition information [8, 9] start in the family, continue in childcare facilities at school, and accompany an individual throughout his/her lifetime [10] in order to help take the “right” decision under different circumstances. Eventually and depending on the specific situation in a country or region, preventive actions or emergency measures in order to fight malnutrition or micronutrient deficiencies and to improve or stabilize the nutritional status of people or specific vulnerable groups, such as small children and their mothers, adolescent girls, elderly people, minority groups, may also be necessary. The role of public partners in this aspect is to steer the process, set priorities, take the final decisions, establish the framework of action, and supervise the implementation of steps to be taken by different actors.
How Do We Interpret the Role of Public Partners in Germany?
Adequate nutrition is an issue of high political importance in Germany. There are growing concerns about the production conditions, leading to a strong public interest in information about the composition of foodstuffs. There is a strong demand for clear indications at the point of sale and/or on the packaging [11–13]. Simultaneously, changing lifestyle habits lead to an increasing level of overweight and obesity while, on the other hand, concerns also grow regarding insufficient nutrition especially among elderly people and specific social groups [14–22].
At
