GAIN and the Consumer Goods Forum co-convened a meeting on Better Nutrition for a Healthier Workforce. The purpose was to review the evidence and, if warranted, to elevate the issue beyond the rather low-key profile it currently has. What is a workforce nutrition programme? We reviewed evidence from high- and low-income countries and from corporate headquarters to supply chain settings.
The retail sector is where consumers come face to face with food. Retailers have significant influence over whether the food that consumers face is nutritious, safe, available, affordable or attractive. I have heard it said many times that the chief buyers for large food retailers are more important in influencing food choices than Ministries of Agriculture or Food.
Animal-source foods (ASFs) are controversial, political and personal. What is the evidence for their role in human health? The environment? This blog is based on a conference hosted by the University of California, Davis, titled "Aligning the Food System for Improved Nutrition in Animal-Source Foods" and aims to offer a window into recent scientific research and thinking.
Any organisation entering into a public private engagement has to be able to publicly justify using public funds. Identifying, preventing, reducing, mitigating and managing conflicts of interest is a key part of that. What are the risks of engaging with private sector?
Next year’s Global Nutrition Summit in Japan marks the start of a demanding Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) race to end malnutrition by 2030. But if we are to have any chance of crossing the finishing line in time, we have to run a different race to the one we have been running for the past 5 years.
First, how do we have to eat differently to significantly reduce malnutrition? Second, what food production systems do we have to put in place to use natural resources sustainably and live within climate change targets? The EAT Lancet Report is a landmark because it answers these two questions simultaneously.
The EAT-Lancet Commission is the first robust, extensive review of the evidence combining criteria for healthy dietary changes with environmental analyses of food system’s impacts, to find common ground that results in recommendations for food systems transformation. It is an impressive piece of work; a daunting task to include all the key components and supporting analyses into a single journal article.
Wherever you look in the global food system, there are obvious differences between men and women. These differences are not only intrinsically unjust, they also have functional consequences. And the societal differences between men and women drive malnutrition in the next generation, with both women’s education and the degree of gender equality having been shown to be strong determinants of stunting in children.
5000 adolescent girls – known as the "Golden Girls" – assembled on 19 December 2017 in the Sultana Kamal Mohila Complex, Dhaka, to celebrate the launch of the national "Adolescent Nutrition Campaign". For the Golden Girls – and many more adolescent girls in the country – this campaign represents a window of opportunity to push further the development of Bangladesh.
I just finished reading ‘Why you eat what you eat' by Professor Rachel Herz. Fascinating, and together with Professor Michael Spence’s “Gastrophysics” it caused me to reflect on the radical changes we need to effectively promote healthy and nutritious diets, and reverse the out-of-control trends in malnutrition affecting every country.
