Podcasts about global nutrition report

Now more than ever, it's important to challenge the world's food and beverage manufacturers to address nutrition issues like obesity and undernutrition. Today, we're going to discuss the 2024 Global Access to Nutrition Index, a very important ranking system that evaluates companies on their nutrition related policies, product portfolios, marketing practices, and engagement with stakeholders. The index is an accountability strategy produced by ATNI, the Access to Nutrition Initiative, a global nonprofit foundation seeking to drive market change for nutrition. Our guest today is Greg Garrett, Executive Director of ATNI. Interview Summary You know, I very much admire the work you and your colleagues have done on this index. It fills such an important need in the field and I'm eager to dive in and talk a little bit more about it. So, let's start with this. You know, we've all heard of the concept of social determinants of health and more recently, people have begun talking about corporate determinants of health. And your organization really is focused on corporate determinants of nutrition. Let's start with a question that kind of frames all this. What's the role of industry in nutrition, according to the way you're looking at things? And how does the Global Index shine a light on this topic? Thanks for the question. We're working primarily quite downstream with large manufacturers and retailers. But we hope to affect change across the value chain by working with that group. Of course, when we talk about private sector in food, that's a very, very broad terminology that we're using. It could include farmers on the one hand, looking all the way upstream, all the way through to SMEs, aggregators, processors, manufacturers. SMEs are what? Small and medium enterprises, small and medium enterprises, local ones. All the way through to the multinational food and beverage manufacturers. But also catering organizations and restaurants. When we talk about business what we're trying to do is ensure that business cares about portability, and access to safe and nutritious food. And I think we can say pretty safely, based on the data which we'll talk about, that the health aspects of food are still not as, they're not at the forefront like they should be. Yet. We'll dive in and talk a little bit more about what the index is and what it shows in a minute. But let's start with a kind of broader question. What is the role of diet and consumption of processed foods in influencing health? Yes, so they say now one in five deaths are related to poor diet. It's arguably now the biggest risk factor related to global morbidity and mortality. We've seen in the last 20 years a slight slowing down of our efforts to combat malnutrition and undernutrition. Whereas we've seen over nutrition, obesity, really taking off. And that's not just in high income countries, but also low- and middle-income countries. So, you know, it might be too little good food and that can lead to at the extreme end of things wasting. It might be too little micronutrients, which can lead to all kinds of micronutrient deficiencies or hidden hunger that leads to many adverse outcomes. Including, for example, cognitive decline or reduced immune system. And then, in terms of diabetes and obesity, we're seeing that really skyrocket. Not only in countries where we have excessive food intake, but also in low- and middle-income countries where they have too much food with a lot of, say, empty calories. Not enough nutrients that are needed. In fact, the recent numbers that we've been working with, it looks like in the last 20 years, obesity rates have gone from about 7.9 percent to 15.9 percent. And by 2030, it might be that 20 percent of global population is considered obese if we don't mitigate that. Right, and of course that number is many, many times higher in the developed countries. So, you've got a tough job. You talked about the complexity of the food industry going all the way to the farmers, to the big companies, and caterers even, and things. And a lot of different health outcomes are involved. How in the world do you construct an index from all that? Why don't you tell us what the Global Index is, and then some of what you found in the most recent report. Yes, so the Global Index, we've been running it for 11 years since ATNI was founded. And it has gone through multiple iterations. This latest one was the biggest we've done and we tried to capture about a quarter of the world's market. So, what we did is we took the 30 largest food and beverage manufacturers by revenue. We looked at 52,000 of their products, and that's where we know the market share was about 23 percent global market share. We profiled the foods. We tried to understand their governance structures and how much nutrition features in the way they run their business. We tried to understand, for example, how they market the foods. Are they marketing them responsibly, according to the World Health Organization guidelines? Really dive deep. It's dozens and dozens of indicators where we ask lots of questions of the companies over a 10-month period. And, by doing that, we hope to understand how financially material is nutrition to these companies. We want to give something of use, not only for the companies, but to policymakers. Because we know there's a big role for policymakers to both incentivize the production and the marketing of healthy foods, but also disincentivize unhealthy foods. We want this to be useful for investors. So, we spend a lot of time, through collaborative engagements, working with the shareholders of these companies as well so that they can invest more responsibly in the food company. And then the other group that we hope to eventually work with are the consumer associations. The groups that would represent consumers so that they can put appropriate pressure on the demand side, you know. They can demand healthier food. It's not that we believe by running an index somehow companies are going to start doing everything right. No. We want to provide data and analysis to the sector so that all the stakeholders can use it to help influence change. That makes perfect sense to have some data driven enterprise to figure out what's actually going on. Otherwise, you're just having to go on intuition. So, what did the most recent index find? Right, so out of those 30 companies, what did we find? There's some good news. Let's start with the good news before we get into the bad news. There's maybe more bad news than good news. In aggregate, we're actually now seeing that 34 percent of the revenue derived from the products that we profiled, those 52,000 products, is based on healthier sales. Meaning 34 percent could be considered healthier foods. That doesn't sound great, maybe, but consider just 4 years ago when we ran this index, it was at 27%. So, there's some marginal increase and maybe if we can accelerate things, and that's what we're trying to do, it's our big strategic objective. We hope that by 2030, we could say that at least half of business' revenue is coming from healthier food options. There's a lot of changes that need to take place to get to that point, but some companies are doing it. Also, we noticed a lot more companies are now starting to use a government endorsed nutrient profile model to define the healthiness of the food products, to measure and monitor the healthiness of their food portfolios, and then to disclose that. That's really good. It's the beginning. First step is measure, disclose. The second step would be put targets on that and actually start to get substantive change towards 2030. But there was a lot of unfortunate news too. We had some backsliding from some of the major companies. For example, low- and middle-income countries actually had the lowest health score. What we think is happening, based on the data we looked at, is that if you're a low-income country, you're getting the lowest healthiness score of these products in your country. So, brand X would be slightly healthier in Europe, but less healthy in the low-income country. So there's a need for regulation there. Can I stop and ask you a question about that? I've got a million questions just flying out of my head that I'm dying to ask. But what you reminded me of is the history of the tobacco industry. When the policies came into play, like very high taxes and banning smoking in public places in the developed countries, US specifically, the smoking rates went way down. But the companies made more money than ever because they just went outside the US. Especially the developing countries and were selling their products. So, it sounds like the food companies might be engaged in a similar enterprise. But why in these countries would they be pushing their least healthy foods so aggressively? I'll start with the facts, because there's some speculation here. But the fact is, if you look at your own monitored data, the highest growth of the modern food retailers is in Africa. So, you've got, for example, 80 to 300 percent growth over the last 5 years in Africa of these modern food retail shops. And in Asia, that's, that's already happened. Still happening in some countries. So, you have enormous opportunity for packaged foods, right? Because that's usually what they're selling, these retailers. I think you have some aspiration going on there, too. I think there's consumers who aspire to have convenient foods. They're more affordable now as incomes increase in those settings. Now, regulation is definitely, in general, in those countries, not as mature as it might be in Europe when it comes to colorants, and taxing, say, sugar sweet beverages. So, what you've asked, I think there's some truth to it. I don't want to come out and say that that's exactly what's happening, but we ran the numbers and the healthiness score. So, we use a five-star rating system. The Health Star rating system, one to five. Anything 3.5 or above, we would consider healthier in a diet. 3.4 and below would be considered unhealthy. And the score in low-income countries was 1.8. And in middle to high income, it was 2.4. So, it's quite a, quite a big difference. That's really very striking. You know, I guess if I'm a food company and I just want to maximize my profits, which of course companies are in business to do, then what I'm going to sell are the foods that people eat the most of. Those are the ones that are triggering the brain biology, the 'over consume'. And the ones that have the greatest shelf life and are easiest to produce and things like that. So, I'm going to make processed foods and push those into new markets as aggressively as I can. So, I'm not asking you to think through the corporate mindset about what's driving this. But it sounds like the data that you have, the end product of all these practices, would be consistent with thinking like that. We like to think that there could be a role for healthier processed foods. But it has to be in moderation. So, what we looked at is the materiality of nutrition. Are companies actually able to have their business and have a healthier food portfolio? So, before we ran the global index, we did an assessment of this. And what we found is that if you're a mixed food company, and you decide to reformulate so that over time you have a healthier food portfolio, in fact, we found that their capital valuations and how they did on the market was slightly better. Not a lot. Than their say, less healthy counterparts. So, what we see is the beginning of a 'health is wealth' sort of narrative. And we hope that we can drive that forward. And of course, policy would help a lot. If policy would come out and say, let's tax the bad, subsidize the good. Then I think industry is going to fall in line. So, we're not sympathetic with industry because a lot of what's happening is not good. On the other hand, we're realists. And we know that these companies are not going away. And we need to make sure that what they offer is as healthy as it should be. And there's a role for everybody in that. All right, that's such an interesting perspective. So, you talked about the global findings. What can you say about the US in particular? What I'd like to do is actually refer to our 2022 US index. So, we did a deep dive just recently; October 2022, right after Biden's Nutrition Conference in DC. And, it wasn't really positive in the sense that we looked at 11 companies. The 11 biggest companies representing 170 billion revenues in the US. And 30 percent of all US food and beverage sales were based on healthier food options. Now, that was 4 years after we ran a 2018 US index. So, 2018, same thing, 30%. There's no change. It's still as unhealthy as ever. I think we need the US to come on board here because it is such a leader. A lot of these companies are headquartered in the US. So, we need to see that healthiness score go up in the US. You know, it's interesting some of the things you mentioned companies might be doing outside the US would be helpful if they did take place in the US. Like front of package labeling would be one example of that. So that would be a place where American companies are behind the curve, and it would be helpful if they caught up. It'd be interesting to dissect the reasons for why they are. But it's interesting that they are. What are some of the things businesses are doing to improve nutrition outcomes? Let's talk maybe on the more positive side. Do you think there's progress overall? It sounds like it from the numbers that you're presenting. But are there signs also of backsliding? And what do you think some of the successes have been? Yes, and I think we can get specific on a few. There's a company headquartered in Mexico, Grupo Bimbo. They rose up in the rankings six places between our 2021 Global Index and this one in 2024. They've been reformulating. They've been making their product portfolio healthier overall. It's about 50 percent now. I think some of that was their own initiative, but it was also prompted by a lot of Latin America's regulations, which is great. I think we can learn a lot from Latin America when it comes to front of pack labels and taxes. So, Group of Bimbo was a good success story. Arla, a Danish dairy company, they came out on top in the index in terms of marketing. So, they have basically said they're not going to market unhealthy foods to children under the age of 16. And they try to even go to 18, but it isn't quite being monitored across all digital platforms. And that's the next level is to take it to the digital platforms and monitor that. And that was a bit disappointing in general, just to find that out of the 30 companies, not one is able to come out and say that they followed the WHO Guidelines on Responsible Marketing 100 percent. The latest index shows that nine out of the 30 companies now, or 30%, nine out of the 30 companies are now using a government endorsed nutrient profile model to define healthy, and then monitor that across their portfolios. And that's a lot of progress. There were only a handful doing that just four years ago. We would ask that all 30 use an NPM, a nutrient profile model, but nine is getting somewhere. So, we're seeing some progress. Boy, if not a single company met the WHO Guidelines for Food Marketing it shows how tenacious those practices are. And how important they are to the company's bottom line to be able to protect that right to market to kids, vulnerable populations, to everybody really. So it really speaks to keeping that topic in the limelight because it's so important. We'd like investors to come out and say they will only invest in companies that are moving towards a 2030 target of marketing response. Zeroing in on 1) responsible marketing and 2) the healthiness food product. Zero in on those two things make really clear what the metrics are to measure that. So, you've mentioned several times, a very important, potentially very important group: shareholders. And you said that that's one of the stakeholders that you interact with. Are there signs out there of activist stakeholders? Shareholders that are putting pressure on the companies to change the way they do business. Yes. So, institutional investors have the ability to talk directly to the board, right? And they have the power in many cases to remove the CEO. So, they're a powerful group, obviously, and we've worked with over 80 now. And had them work with us to understand what investing in a progressive food company would look like. It's making better and better decisions, continuous improvements on nutrition. We have 87, I think is the latest count, who have signed a declaration to invest like this in a food healthier business. They represent $21 trillion of assets under management. It's a very powerful group. Now are all 80 actively, like you mentioned activist shareholders, you know, pushing, say, for example, for resolution. No. Some are. And they're using our data for that. And we applaud any kind of action towards better nutrition, healthier foods, better marketing using our data. We, as ATNI, do not sign these shareholder resolutions. But we absolutely will make our data available as a public good so that they can be used by this powerful group to yeah, hold the companies to account and hopefully invest in the long term. That's what it comes down to. Because it's true that this will take time for the benefits to come to both business and to people, but it's worth it. And I think the longer-term investors get it. And that's why they're doing these shareholder resolutions and different other investor escalation strategy. That strikes me as being pretty good news. Let's go down this road just a little bit further, talking about this, the shareholders. So, if the shareholders are starting to put, some at least, are putting pressure on the companies to go in a healthier direction, what do you think is motivating that? Do they see some big risk thing down the road that they're trying to anticipate and avoid? Is it policies that if the companies don't behave, governments might feel more emboldened to enact? Is it litigation that they see? What are they trying to avoid that's making them put pressure on the companies to move in these directions? That's a great question. When we ran the materiality assessment on nutrition earlier this year, we interviewed many of the investors and it seemed to come down to three things. One, there is coming regulation. There's more and more evidence that when you regulate the food system and you regulate food industry, and you do it in a smart way through a two-tiered levy system, for example, on sugar sweetened beverages. You tax the company, not the consumer. It actually does work. You have a decrease in consumption of these beverages. So coming regulation. The other one is increasing consumer demand for healthier options. Now, that might not be happening yet everywhere. And I think it only really happens when people can afford to demand healthier foods, right? But it seems like it's a trend everywhere as incomes increase and people's knowledge and understanding of nutrition increases, they do want healthier options. So, I think investors see that coming. And the third one is healthcare bills. Now, the investors don't always pick that up. Although in the case of some of our insurance companies who we work with, like AXA, it does. But they see the big macroeconomic picture. And we were talking to one of the investors last week, and they said it's all about megatrends. For them it's about investing in the megatrends, and they see this as a mega trend. This, you know, growing obesity, the cost related to obesity, growing costs related to diabetes and all NCDs. And they don't want to be investing in that future. We need to be investing in a healthier future. I think those are the three things we're gathering from the investors. So, Greg, there's sort of this jarring reality, it seems to me. And other people have written about this as well. That if the world becomes healthier with respect to its diet; let's just say you could wave a magic wand and obesity would go from its very high levels now to much lower levels or even zero. It means the world would be having to eat less food and the companies would be selling less food. And then you superimpose upon that another jarring reality that people simply buy more, eat more, of less healthy options. So, if a child sits down in front of a bowl of plain cornflakes, they're going to eat X amount. If that's sugar frosted flakes, they're going to eat, you know, 1.5 X or 2 X or whatever the number is. So, how can the companies try to make as much money as possible and be true to its shareholders and shareholders while at the same time, facing these realities. That's a great question. It goes to the heart of what we're trying to do at ATNI. That's why we say we're transforming markets for nutrition. Because if we don't help support that underlying market change, then we won't get very far in a sustainable way. You mentioned calories and over consumption. And that, of course, is part of the problem, but I think it's equally fair to say not all calories are treated the same and we need to look at the ingredients going into these food products to begin with. You know, why is sugar or any kind of corn derivative such an attractive cheap ingredient to put into food? And so bad for people if it's not eaten with anything else, if it's just an empty carb, for example. It's because of the subsidies, the billions of dollars of subsidies going into sugar around the world. In the United States, a very large subsidy going to the corn industry. And so, corn is then turned into many types of derivatives, many different types of ingredients that go into our foods. So, that's one thing. I think the other is that there's a big role for food policy to level the playing field. We hear this all the time from our industry partners, and we tend to agree. You know if two or three of the 30 companies that we just indexed stick their neck out and do something good, it'll work for two or three years until the other 27 start to undercut them. And if they're somehow making, you know, better money, bigger profits, more market share it's going to be very tempting for the three that made the good decisions to go back to what they were doing before. We have to change the market structure and end the perverse market incentives. Makes sense. One final question. What can policymakers do? I think we've touched on it a little bit. There's the fiscal policy space, which we're very excited about at ATNI. There are over 100 jurisdictions now that have put in place some kind of sugar sweetened beverage tax. But why not expand that take it to any kind of product which is too high in sugar, right? And again, make it like a proper levy on the company and not the consumer. Because that's where the evidence is that it works. Subsidies, you know, there's very few countries which are subsidizing healthier foods. Instead, you're seeing subsidies, as we just mentioned, going to the wrong kind of product. So that's one. And here's a new one: environmental, social, and governance investing metrics. As countries start to mandate the disclosure requirements for publicly listed companies, why not include two nutrition metrics? One on marketing, one on healthiness, so that every food company is mandated to disclose information on these things. That would be a real innovative way for policymakers to help regulate things. And front of pack labeling. You mentioned it yourself earlier. We would agree clear front of pack labels. So, the consumers know what's healthy and what's not. BIO Greg S Garrett is the Executive Director of ATNI (Access to Nutrition Initiative), a global foundation supporting market change for nutrition. Greg has held several leadership roles over the past twenty years, including serving on the Global Executive Team of the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi), directing Abt Global's health reform in Kyrgyzstan and leading strategy at ThinkWell, a global health organization. During his eight years with the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), Greg served as Director of Food Fortification and Director of Policy & Financing during which time he established a multi-million-dollar financing facility and managed a portfolio that reached one billion people with fortified foods. Greg serves on the Global Nutrition Report's Stakeholder Group and is a member of the Blended Finance TaskForce. He holds a BA and an MSc in International Development from the University of Bath, UK.

Dr Haddad argues that, while policymakers and public health leaders are currently managing a range of urgent priorities, delivering good nutrition must be a foundational component of domestic budgets and development cooperation funding. At a time of great food insecurity, he highlights how nutrition stakeholders will need to do more to make the case as to why it is in the interest of non-nutrition stakeholders to agree to tackle malnutrition in the developed and developing world, with examples from climate, the private sector, and international financial institutions. Dr Haddad's speech is timely, as the 2025 Paris Nutrition for Growth Summit will focus on the critical need for sustained investment in nutrition. About the Speaker: Dr Lawrence Haddad is the Executive Director of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) and has held this position since 2016. In 2020 he chaired Action Track 1 of the 2021 United Nations Food Systems Summit: Ensuring Access to Safe and Nutritious Food for All. Dr Haddad is the co-founder of the Standing Together for Nutrition, a response to the COVID-19 crisis, and is one of the drivers behind the Initiative on Climate and Nutrition (ICAN). Prior to GAIN, he was lead author of the Global Nutrition Report, Director of the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), and Director of the Food Consumption and Nutrition Division at IFPRI. He was made a World Food Prize Laureate in 2018 and was awarded a CMG in the 2023 UK Honours List for his “services to international nutrition, food and agriculture”.

In this episode Afshan Khan, UN Assistant Secretary-General and Coordinator of the SUN Movement shares her views on how SUN can provide tailored support countries to scale up their efforts to end malnutrition in all its forms. She responds to issues raised by our country guests and David Nabarro in previous episodes. Questions addressed include: How does the SUN Movement link with other elements of the international nutrition and wider aid ecosystem, including the Global Nutrition Report, Nutrition for Growth and Climate COPs? How is the SUN Movement brokering technical support to countries, facilitating the sharing of learning between them and strengthening capabilities to mobilise financial resources? Should SUN Movement membership be open to high- as well as low- and middle-income countries? What are the opportunities for a global fund for nutrition? Fifteen years on from the first Lancet Series on nutrition, is there a need for a facilitated process to promote greater coherence and effectiveness in how the global nutrition ecosystem supports country-led efforts? Please join the debate! Credits: Recorded edited and published by: N4D & Nutriat.coTheme tune: Saraweto, used with kind permission of Just East of Jazz© N4D Group 2024 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

"The two communities act as if they are ships passing in the night." That is Lawrence Haddad's assessment of how those concerned with climate action and those concerned with nutrition behave towards each other. It is a situation he believes needs to change, and urgently. "Climate action, or a lack of action, really affects nutrition status a lot," he says. "What's maybe less known is that nutrition action also affects climate." Lawrence Haddad is the executive director at GAIN - Global Action for Improved Nutrition. Prior to GAIN, he has held a number of executive roles, including founding co-chair and lead author of the Global Nutrition Report, as well as Director of the world-renowned Institute of Development Studies in Sussex. Lawrence's work has also gained international recognition, seeing him receive the 2018 World Food Prize on top of being made a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George in 2022. At the heart of it, Lawrence is an economist with an interest in the intersection of poverty, food insecurity, and malnutrition. In this episode of the Food Matters Live podcast, we explore his work at GAIN, look at some of the issues surrounding malnutrition, and discuss how we can create a global food system that sustains us all. Guest: Lawrence Haddad, Executive Director, GAIN

Malnutrition is a political choice Our guest: Shawn Baker In this episode, the N4D team discuss with Shawn Baker. Shawn is the Chief Program Officer with Helen Keller International and was formerly head of nutrition for USAID and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He has also occupied senior leadership roles in international multistakeholder initiatives including the Scaling up Nutrition (SUN) Movement and the Global Nutrition Report. Shawn talks about his life journey from rural northwest Pennsylvania and studying marine biology to a lifelong career in public health nutrition. He highlights success stories from countries that have reduced malnutrition, the ingredients of success as well as challenges that are hindering progress around the world. He highlights the qualities needed by nutrition leaders at national and international levels. For background information on issues discussed, please see the episode notes below. Please visit the Podcast page on the N4D website and share your comments, ideas and experiences.Please join the debate!Credits:Recorded edited and published by: N4D & Nutriat.coTheme tune: Saraweto, used with kind permission of Just East of Jazz© N4D Group 2023 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mathilde TouvierSanté publique 2022-2023Collège de FranceColloque - Nutritional Determinants of Health: Recent Research Discoveries and Translation into Public Health Action : Understanding the Global Rise of Ultra-Processed Foods: the Food Systems and Commercial DeterminantsIntervenant(s)Pr Phillip Baker, Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition, Deakin UniversityRésuméThe share of ultra-processed foods in human diets is rising nearly everywhere, raising serious concerns for human and planetary health. Too often, blame is placed on individuals or families, and their dietary choices, stigmatising people living with obesity, and resulting in ineffective policy responses that focus on consumers alone. In this presentation Dr Baker presents an alternative interpretation. His research focuses instead on the role of the food industry, and the market and political practices used by large corporations to shape food systems and ultimately—to grow and sustain ultra-processed food markets on a global scale. Corporations like Coca-Cola, Nestle and McDonalds act as vectors for the spread of ultra-processed foods worldwide, normalising their products through intensive marketing, and displacing the sectors and industries that produce fresh and minimally processed foods. The same corporations fund and coordinate lobby groups, develop self-governing regulations, and promote corporate science to frame societal debates about ultra-processed foods, and to block progressive public health regulation. Responding to this challenge requires comprehensive policy frameworks that counteract the market and political activities of these corporations, and the mobilization of broad coalitions of organizations working for the public health interest.Phillip BakerDr Baker's research focuses on understanding worldwide food systems change, and the implications for human and planetary health. This includes the global rise of ultra-processed foods, the political economy of food systems, and the commercial determinants of infant and child nutrition. He is currently co-leading a new Lancet Series on Ultra-processed Foods and Human Health, including how to mobilize and accelerate a step-change in worldwide policy action. Dr Baker is a member of the WHOLancet Breastfeeding Collaboration, a former member of the Global Nutrition Report, and Lancet Commission on Obesity. He regularly consults to UN agencies on related topics.

In this episode of the McKinsey Global Institute's Forward Thinking podcast, Janet Bush talks with Jessica Fanzo. Fanzo is the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Global Food Policy and Ethics at the Berman Institute of Bioethics, the BloombergSchool of Public Health, and the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University in the United States. From 2017 to 2019, Fanzo served as the co-chair of the Global Nutrition Report and the UN High Level Panel of Expertson Food Security and Nutrition. She was the first laureate of the Carasso Foundation's Premio Daniel Carasso prize in 2012 for her research on sustainablefood and diets for long-term human health.See www.mckinsey.com/privacy-policy for privacy information

The recent Global Nutrition Report and the National Family Health Survey show India is performing abysmally on anaemia, especially among women, and childhood wasting. There’s more – India is not on course to meet seven of the 13 global nutrition targets, the report warned. These are serious issues that have human, economic and social repercussions. Please listen to the latest episode of All Indians Matter.

Hostka: Jessica Fanzo je profesorka globální potravinové politiky a etiky na Bermanově institutu pro bioetiku a na Bloombergově škole veřejného zdraví na Univerzitě Johna Hopkinse ve Spojených státech. V letech 2017 až 2019 byla spolupředsedkyní iniciativy Global Nutrition Report, skupiny odborníků OSN pro zabezpečení potravin a výživu. Je také součástí komise EAT-Lancet, která ve své zprávě z roku 2019 představila plán, jak nakrmit planetu pomocí zdravého jídelníčku z udržitelných zdrojů.

When the food industry promises to police itself and pledges to improve nutrition in public health, can it be trusted to make meaningful change or must government mandate those changes? Our two guests today have done groundbreaking work to help address this very question. Dr. Jessica Fanzo, Professor of Global Food and Agricultural Policy and Ethics at Johns Hopkins University, and Dr. Jennifer Harris is Senior Research Advisor for Marketing Initiatives at the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at the University of Connecticut. Interview Summary So Jess, let's begin with you. You coauthored what I thought was a very important and novel report released by the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition on product reformulation by the food industry. Would you might explain what's meant by reformulation? When we think about reformulation, it's really defined as the process of all-terrain a food or a beverage product. You can alter that by improving the products' health profile or reducing the content of harmful nutrients or ingredients. So it's a process of either removing those negative ingredients or nutrients or adding back positive ones into foods. Why is that done? Because people consume a lot of processed foods. Almost every food that we consume has gone through some form of processing, but there's a whole range of that processing from very minimal to very highly processed, what's often called ultra-processed or junk food that doesn't have a lot of nutritional value. In the report, we were looking at what are the challenges with reformulating food? What are some of the opportunities to reformulate food? And in the realm of reformulation, has it had a positive impact on public health? So we were looking at those aspects of the reformulation of processed foods. So I'm assuming there could be enormous advances to public health if reformulation were done on a broad scale and or if it were done in a meaningful way. So what were your main findings then? Have there been examples of industry being successful with voluntary reformulation? Somewhat. And absolutely it could have potentially really important positive impacts for public health, but it's also not a panacea for improving diets and nutrition. And while there are some examples where voluntary reformulation has had some impact, the UK with salt and some other examples, overall we found that it's important for governments to mandate reformulation through different tools, whether it's labeling, taxes, et cetera. For foods that are not reformulated, we felt that it was really important for governments to mandate with clear, transparent and direct targets, particularly removing the unhealthy ingredients like added sugars, salts, unhealthy fats like trans fats. The food industry should be involved in implementing reformulation policies but not in their design. And governments need to really step in and step up. But that said, that doesn't mean that reformulation is going to solve all the problems. Governments also need to invest in many other tools to protect consumers and to invest in other ways to improve diets for nutrition. So reformulation shouldn't be the only answer. So I'm assuming the reason that food industry won't go far enough on their own is that these things that make the food less healthy also tend to make them pretty palatable, or give them long shelf life or properties that make people enjoy them a lot. And that why in the world would they do something that would make their products less desirable? Does that pretty much the case or do you see other reasons why? That's definitely true. I mean, these highly processed foods are cheap in their ingredients to make, they are very palatable, there's a high demand for them. We're seeing this shift now into low-income countries like with tobacco when consumers catch on that these foods are not so healthy, they go to populations where there's a bit of a lag in that knowledge. But also reformulating foods from the industry's perspective is not so easy. It's quite expensive to do it. It's difficult to reduce salt and sugar, which are vital not only for the taste of foods, but for their composition and shelf-life and texture. So it has a lot of ramifications to remove those ingredients. So meeting government mandates around reformulation can be really challenging and sometimes impossible for companies. So they often will deal with getting a warning label, for the example in Chile, they'll just take the warning label because they can't reformulate some foods. But there's a change in consumer demand and tastes. Consumers like their brands, but the more and more consumers are caring about clean labels, environmental sustainability, their health, people are concerned about the amount of sugar in foods so they're going to have to answer to that, that changing demand as consumers demand better foods whether it's from a health or sustainability or transparency perspective. Let me ask one more question related to this. Is it also the case that it's pretty difficult for some company to be the first out of the gate if they were inclined to do this voluntarily because then their products would become less desirable and their competitors would be kinda stuck in the old ways? So isn't that another argument for government intervening that everybody is on the same playing field? Absolutely, yes. I mean, why not hold every player accountable and to the same standards and mandates? It pushes them all to take action. So when we were interviewing some of the industry players, they really struggle because when they did try to reformulate some of the foods, consumers no longer bought them because they're very wedded to their brands, they're wedded to certain tastes, it's a real challenge for them to keep their consumer base. But at the same time, try to adhere to government mandate. And some companies care more about health and sustainability than others. We definitely learn that some companies have no interest in that, because they know they'll always be a big consumer base for these quote less healthy foods. So there's a real issue from company to company of who's willing to take more action to reformulate and who doesn't really care to reformulate at all and they're willing to live with warning stickers and taxes. So Jennifer, let's turn to you. So you've done really pioneering work on the impact of food marketing on children that began when we were colleagues together at the Rudd Center when it was at Yale University. And there I was witness to the fact that you created a very impressive methodology for studying what's a pretty complicated issue. And you paid a lot of attention to industry promises for self-policing of children's food marketing. Do you mind giving us a quick sense of what's being marketed to who and how, and how much marketing children are exposed to? Annually, companies spend over $13 billion in advertising food to all consumers. And just to put that number in perspective, the whole chronic disease prevention budget at the CDC is 1 billion. So the companies are really controlling the messages about what people should eat. And most of that money is spent to advertise very unhealthy products. The products that are contributing to poor diet and disease in this country. The biggest ones are fast food, sugary drinks, sweet and salty snacks and candy. Those categories represent about 80% of all foods that are advertised. Healthier categories of foods, if you look at all of juice, water, fruits, and vegetables and nuts combined, it's less than 3% of the total. So they're really pushing these very high fat, high sugar, high salt products extensively. Companies spend most of their advertising dollars on television ads. On an annual basis, kids see about 4,000 of those ads per year. So almost 4,000 ads, that's over 10 a day for unhealthy food. Kids of color, so black kids see twice as many of those ads. A lot of the worst products, their advertising is targeted to Black and Hispanic communities and especially adolescents. But TV isn't the only way companies advertise. And in the last few years, the ways that companies market just increased exponentially. Now with smartphones and tablets, they can reach kids any place and any time through things like ads on YouTube videos, social media, smartphone apps, with games and ordering programs, even educational websites teachers are using in grade school have ads on them. This kind of marketing is personalized. So what you see depends on what you do online. They know who you are and they can reach you. And unfortunately, this kind of marketing also is the kind of thing that parents can't monitor as easily as what your child is watching on TV. So the companies basically try to be wherever the consumer is to reach them with their advertising. Well those are really stunning numbers. I know one of the arguments the industry has made for years, and one of the things that you've addressed directly in your research is their claim that this food advertising doesn't really make kids or adults eat an unhealthy diet, it just shifts their preference from brand to brand. So if Coke is advertising a lot, they might say, "Well we just wanna take market share from Pepsi, "but we're not encouraging sugar beverage consumption." What would you say to that? That is something they've argued for a long time. And one thing that we showed is that just watching a television program with food advertising makes kids and adults eat a lot more both while they're watching and afterwards. And another of our colleagues, Ashley Gearhardt has done some really interesting research showing how the food advertising actually activates the reward regions of the brain and leads to increased consumption. So that's one way that food marketing affects more than brand preferences. There's also been a lot of research showing that if you advertise Coke, it increases consumption and purchases of all sugary drinks. They also affect sales of the categories, not just the specific brands. So with you and others doing so much work showing how much of the marketing there is and how disastrous the impact is, you can imagine the industry feels vulnerable to the possibility of outside regulation or perhaps even litigation. And so one of the things the industry has done and this links back to what Jessica was talking about in the context of reformulation, is to say that they can police themselves. So can you explain how they've gone about doing that? Well in the US there's a program called the Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative, which is the food industry self-regulatory program to address food advertising to kids. And there are similar programs in countries around the world. But basically what the industry has promised is that they will only advertise products that meet nutrition standards in child directed media. That sounds really great. They implemented the program in 2007, but you said Kelly, we've done a lot of research showing how many limitations and loopholes there are in this program. One is that they only define children as 11 years and younger. So they only have promised to reduce unhealthy advertising to young children. And more and more of the research is showing that adolescents are just as affected and maybe even more effected by the advertising. Since their program was implemented, they've increased their advertising to the slightly older group that isn't covered by the CFBAI. Another limitation is their definition of what is child directed is advertising in media where children are the primary audience. So on television that would basically be children's TV. So Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, those kinds of programs. But children watch a lot more television than just children's television. And so they can still advertise anything they want on programs that are also watched by adults and older children. And then the third major limitation is that they've set their own nutrition standards. So they have defined what is healthy. And maybe not surprisingly, a lot of the products that they say are healthier choices that can be advertised to kids are things like sugary cereals, fruit drinks that maybe have less sugar but they also have artificial sweeteners in them. Things like goldfish crackers, fast-food kids' meals, all of those can still be advertised to children under their nutrition standards. What we found is since the program was implemented in 2007, food advertising on children's television has gone down quite a bit, 45%. But at the same time, advertising on other types of television that children watch has gone up about 30%. So now kids see almost as much food advertising as they used to, but most of it is not on children's television, it's on the other kinds of television that they're watching. And a lot of the harder things to monitor, things like apps and social media and websites do not qualify as child directed media under this program. Now the reason I asked both of you to be on this podcast at the same time as I figured there would be interesting similarities, even though you're working on somewhat different topics, and boy does it turn out to be they're real themes weave through this. So let's talk next about what might be done then. So Jessica, with your work on industry reformulation, what have you concluded can be done voluntarily? Kelly, I think government needs to be much more involved than they are. The challenges that we see with voluntary regulation, whether it's in reformulation or marketing of unhealthy foods to children, we know that voluntary reformulation, industry sets its own agenda, they set their own targets, they have no accountability to meet those targets, they may pledge to reduce harmful ingredients but if the product has a very high level of these unhealthy ingredients, the reformulation may not make much of a difference from a public health point of view. So I think we need much more regulation. Governments need to hold industry accountable and ensure that they are meeting national standards for public health. I think government has been too laissez-faire about industry and the power that they hold. And I think now we're seeing the consequences of that not only in the United States, but everywhere in the world with rising levels of obesity and NCDs and unhealthy diets being a big risk factor with these processed foods playing a huge role in that. So we really need to see government step up in a much more profound way and hold industry having public health goals. It's a little bit of enough is enough. So Jess, just out of curiosity, let's say you were the government official in charge of taking such action and you have the authority to do it, where would you start? Would you start with particular nutrients across the food chain or would you start with certain categories of food and would you worry first about sugar, salt, fat? That's a good question. In the paper we outline four types of processed foods. To me I would probably look across the entire food supply chain at those highly, highly processed foods. And it would be good to start with at least the three categories of sugars, salt, and trans fats to even start with and setting key targets for those and marking those ultra-processed foods that go beyond that target. Chile had the great food law that's been enacted that's put warning labels on the front of packages and has regulated I think some of the advertising of those foods. Jennifer you probably know about this. And I think that's been an important case study for the rest of the world to look at of how Chile has done that because sales of those foods that have the warning label have gone down somewhere in the ballpark of I think between 23 and 28%, depending on the population. But I think there's lessons to be learned of how Chile has done that that other governments could learn from. Now I'm happy that you pointed out the advances in Chile because there have been some very impressive impacts reported from the studies that have been done so far. So I agree that that is really a model to look to. So Jennifer, let's just get your opinion on this. Where do you come down on this issue of voluntary versus mandated? So we've given the industry 12 years now to show that they can market healthier products to kids. And basically what they've done is they're marketing slightly healthier products to kids but the products they're marketing are not nutritious products that children should be consuming a lot of like sugared cereals. So it's pretty clear that they can't do it on their own and that regulation is required. In the US, we have a little bit of an issue that not all countries have because of the First Amendment. And advertising is protected speech according to the Supreme Court. So we can't just say companies cannot advertise anything. So we have to be more strategic about the kinds of regulations that we can implement here. If we could do anything we wanted, Chile is a great example. In the next year, they won't be able to advertise any products that are high in fat, sugar and salt before 9:00 p.m. So it's not just children's programming, they won't be able to advertise it. They had to take all their characters off their packages. And so Tony the Tiger can't be on the package of frosted flakes anymore because it's high in sugar. They've done a lot of great things in Chile and sure we can adapt some of what they've done. In other countries also, for example the UK has very strong laws about marketing foods in digital media. So that would be another thing that we could import from other countries.   Bios   Jessica Fanzo, Ph.D., is the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Global Food Policy and Ethics at the Berman Institute of Bioethics, the Bloomberg School of Public Health, and the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at the Johns Hopkins University in the USA. She also serves as the Director of Hopkins' Global Food Policy and Ethics Program, and as Director of Food & Nutrition Security at the JHU Alliance for a Healthier World.  From 2017 to 2019, Jessica served as the Co-Chair of the Global Nutrition Report and the UN High Level Panel of Experts on Food Systems and Nutrition. Before coming to Hopkins, she has also held positions at Columbia University, the Earth Institute, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the World Food Programme, Bioversity International, and the Millennium Development Goal Centre at the World Agroforestry Center in Kenya. She was the first laureate of the Carasso Foundation's Sustainable Diets Prize in 2012 for her research on sustainable food and diets for long-term human health. Jennifer Harris, Ph.D., is a Senior Research Advisor, Marketing Initiatives at the Rudd Center. Previously, Dr. Harris worked as Director of Marketing Initiatives and was an Associate Professor in Allied Health Sciences at the University of Connecticut. Harris received her B.A. from Northwestern University and M.B.A. in Marketing from The Wharton School. Before returning to graduate school, she was a marketing executive for eighteen years, including at American Express as a Vice President in consumer marketing and as principal in a marketing strategy consulting firm. Harris completed her PhD in Social Psychology at Yale University with John Bargh and Kelly Brownell.

Today on “Food Talk with Dani Nierenberg,” Dani interviews Dr. William Dietz, one of the world’s leading experts on obesity. They discuss why effectively tackling obesity is taking so long and what we can do to slow the obesity epidemic. Later, Dani interviews Venkatesh Mannar, chemical engineer and pioneering food technologist. They discuss the recently released 2020 Global Nutrition Report and nutritional inequities in our global food systems. While you’re listening, subscribe, rate, and review the show; it would mean the world to us to have your feedback. You can listen to “Food Talk with Dani Nierenberg” wherever you consume your podcasts.

Ep. 80: Dr. Lawrence Haddad, Executive Director of Global  Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) – Geneva Switzerland || For Sourcing Matters episode 80 we welcome Dr. Lawrence Haddad – Executive Director of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN). The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) was launched at the UN in 2002 to tackle the human suffering caused by malnutrition. Working with diverse global partners, GAIN aims at making healthier food choices more affordable, more available, and more desirable. Dr. Lawrence Haddad became the Executive Director of GAIN in October 2016. Prior to this Lawrence was the founding co-chair and lead author of the Global Nutrition Report from 2014 to 2016. From 2004-2014 Lawrence was the Director of the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), the world’s leading development studies institute. Before joining IDS in 2004, he was Director of the Food Consumption and Nutrition Division at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) from 1994 to 2004. An economist, Lawrence has a PhD in Food Research from Stanford University.  Most recently, in June of 2018 – the World Food Prize Foundation awarded Dr. Haddad the 2018 World Food Prize. THE FACTS: According to Global Nutrition Report, about 88% of countries suffer from two or three forms of malnutrition. Every day, 815 million people are going to bed hungry, up from 777mm in 2015. 1 in 3 people lack key micronutrients, like iron and vitamin A, needed to grow properly, live active lives, and raise a healthy family. At the same time, 2 billion adults are overweight or obese and 41 million children are overweight.  Malnutrition now undermines billions of people’s health and leaves 155mm children stunted every year.  In speaking to the outcomes that come to stunted children “without proper nutrition – children’s hardware and software is not developing properly” - explains Haddad. GAIN has its sights set on addressing these far reaching concerns with both an air and ground attack.  Led by Haddad and his impressive teams across the world – GAIN uses boots on the ground and strategic influence to introduce nutrition as a framework of change, to more.  TuneIn to our 50 minute conversation to hear about how this agent of change is tackling malnutrition throughout global societies being underfed and overfed.   www.SourcingMatters.show

Hey y'all - we've missed you! We've been gone for a minute, but we're super excited to finally share this episode with you. Check it out! In this week’s grocery bag, we talk about: --How your food dollar is spent. What % goes to farm workers? To processing? https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2017/october/follow-the-food-dollars/ --The longest we’ve ever waited in line for food (what's the longest you've ever waited? Tweet at us ) The Slutty Vegan: http://sluttyveganatl.com/ Di Fara Pizza: https://www.difarapizzany.com/ --Work requirements for SNAP https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/03/politics/snap-work-requirements-food-stamps/index.html Finally, Khris chats with Dr. Jessica Fanzo, JHU faculty working in global nutrition, EAT Lancet contributor, Global Nutrition Report co-chair, and all-round bad@$$. Jess brings a fresh take on historic global food narratives, the future of food, and shares her own journey to nutrition science. Her advice to young food/nutrition/health professionals? Be more punk rock. Oh, and goats. Definitely goats Twitter: @jessfanzo https://eatforum.org/contributor/dr-jessica-fanzo/ https://goatrodeo.wordpress.com/

Introductory remarks by Fawzi al-Sultan at the IFPRI-hosted roundtable discussion to launch the new Global Nutrition Report in Washington, DC., December 9, 2014

Presentation by Lawrence Haddad at IFPRI-hosted roundtable discussion to launch the new Global Nutrition Report in Washington, DC., December 9, 2014

Panel discussion at the IFPRI-hosted roundtable event to launch the new Global Nutrition Report in Washington, DC., December 9, 2014

Question and Answer segment at IFPRI-hosted roundtable discussion to launch the new Global Nutrition Report in Washington, DC., December 9, 2014

Closing remarks by Shenggen Fan at the IFPRI-hosted roundtable discussion to launch the new Global Nutrition Report in Washington, DC, December 9, 2014