Hidden Hunger and the Transformation of Food Systems. Группа авторов

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Hidden Hunger and the Transformation of Food Systems - Группа авторов World Review of Nutrition and Dietetics

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YambiaCecilia Rochaa,bNicholas Jacobsa International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food)

      aIPES-Food, Brussels, Belgium; bSchool of Nutrition, Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

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      Abstract

      The urgent call to transform global food systems is well founded on the need to reduce the effects of food systems on human health, environment, peoples’ rights, and creation of a just society. Unhealthy diets contribute significantly to the global disease burden and pose huge risks to morbidity and mortality. Efforts to transform diets are highly dependent on transformation of the food system. All countries are now affected by the various forms of malnutrition – undernutrition, overweight and obesity, micronutrient deficiencies – with progress often too slow and in some cases going into reverse. Concomitantly, the number of food insecure is increasing, and the prevalence of non-communicable disease is high. IPES-Food, in collaboration with the Global Alliance for the Future of Food, undertook a review of the scientific evidence covering a whole range of global health impacts associated with food systems. The review examined how food and farming systems affect human health, explored why the negative impacts are systematically reproduced and why we fail to prioritize them politically, and how we can build healthier food systems for all. Five categories of health impacts were examined: (i) occupational hazards; (ii) environmental contamination; (iii) contaminated, unsafe, and altered foods; (iv) unhealthy dietary patterns, and (v) food insecurity. The study confirmed that food systems affect health through multiple, interconnected pathways, generating severe human and economic costs. It also highlighted how prevailing power relations in the food system help to shape and sometimes obscure our understanding of the impacts. Five leverage points for building healthier food systems are recommended: (i) promotion of food systems thinking; (ii) reasserting scientific integrity and research as a public good; (iii) bringing the alternatives to light; (iv) adopting the precautionary principle, and (v) building integrated food policies under participatory governance.

      © 2020 S. Karger AG, Basel

      Health Impacts of Food Systems and Their Estimated Costs

      We clustered the health impacts of food systems into five key impact channels, aiming to focus on the different ways in which people get sick (i.e., the negative health impacts of food systems). These five interconnected channels are discussed below: (i) occupational hazards; (ii) environmental contamination; (iii) contaminated, unsafe, and altered foods; (iv) unhealthy dietary patterns, and (v) food insecurity.

      1. Occupational Hazards

      2. Environmental Contamination

      People get sick because of contaminants in the water, soil, or air. The health impacts arise via the exposure of whole populations to contaminated environments “downstream” of food production, via pollution of soil, air, and water resources, or exposure to livestock-based pathogens (e.g., contamination of drinking water with nitrates, agriculture-based air pollution, antimicrobial resistance).

      3. Contaminated, Unsafe, and Altered Foods

      4. Unhealthy Dietary Patterns

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