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DocumentVitamin A: Moving the food-based approach forward 2013
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No results found.Food-based approaches to combating vitamin A deficiency continue to be largely ignored by governments and donors. This may be partly because the way of viewing them has largely been informed by the community which supports supplementation. Food-based approaches may be perceived as competitive or distracting and are thus slandered, for example claiming they are unproven or even ineffective. To the contrary, it is the supplementation approach that fails to improve vitamin A status and is even lack ing in proof of impact on young child mortality in real life settings. A wide variety of common and indigenous foods are proven effective in improving vitamin A status even in short-term trials. Food based approaches are complex to implement and to evaluate and take time to mature and exert impact. But unlike supplementation, they reach all members of the community, are safe for pregnant women, have no side effects, are sustainable, and confer a wide range of benefits in addition to improving vi tamin A status. Food-based approaches are also often portrayed as being expensive, but this is only true from a “donor-centric” way of viewing costs. From the point of view of host countries, communities and families who grow vitamin A rich foods, the economic benefits are likely to outweigh the costs. The 1992 ICN called for the elimination of vitamin A deficiency. The urgency of this call may have provided an excuse for the rapid implementation of supplementation programs in over 100 countries while very few have implemented national foodbased approaches. It is thus important that ICN 2 instead call for the replacement of supplementation programs with sustainable food-based approaches. It should call on countries to assign responsibility and funding to specific individuals or organizations who are then given benchmarks and are held accountable to meet them. Donors could greatly assist by funding simple dietary assessment and other components of national plans for making this shift. -
Book (series)The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020
Transforming food systems for affordable healthy diets
2020Updates for many countries have made it possible to estimate hunger in the world with greater accuracy this year. In particular, newly accessible data enabled the revision of the entire series of undernourishment estimates for China back to 2000, resulting in a substantial downward shift of the series of the number of undernourished in the world. Nevertheless, the revision confirms the trend reported in past editions: the number of people affected by hunger globally has been slowly on the rise since 2014. The report also shows that the burden of malnutrition in all its forms continues to be a challenge. There has been some progress for child stunting, low birthweight and exclusive breastfeeding, but at a pace that is still too slow. Childhood overweight is not improving and adult obesity is on the rise in all regions.The report complements the usual assessment of food security and nutrition with projections of what the world may look like in 2030, if trends of the last decade continue. Projections show that the world is not on track to achieve Zero Hunger by 2030 and, despite some progress, most indicators are also not on track to meet global nutrition targets. The food security and nutritional status of the most vulnerable population groups is likely to deteriorate further due to the health and socio economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.The report puts a spotlight on diet quality as a critical link between food security and nutrition. Meeting SDG 2 targets will only be possible if people have enough food to eat and if what they are eating is nutritious and affordable. The report also introduces new analysis of the cost and affordability of healthy diets around the world, by region and in different development contexts. It presents valuations of the health and climate-change costs associated with current food consumption patterns, as well as the potential cost savings if food consumption patterns were to shift towards healthy diets that include sustainability considerations. The report then concludes with a discussion of the policies and strategies to transform food systems to ensure affordable healthy diets, as part of the required efforts to end both hunger and all forms of malnutrition. -
BookletIn Brief to The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020
Transforming food systems for affordable healthy diets
2020The In Brief version of the FAO flagship publication, the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020, contains the key messages and main points from the publication and is aimed at the media, policy makers and a more general public
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