NUTRITION

Ultra-processed foods. On October 16th, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) highlighted that ultra-processed foods suffer from numerous industrial interventions that result in products with high levels of sugar, fat, sodium and additives, easily accessible and quickly consumable. They pointed out that after processing, the final products contain little or no real food. Based on a study conducted by the director of NCD of PAHO Anselm Hennis, the organization recommends the application of taxes on sugary beverages and other ultra-processed products to reduce their affordability and prohibit the advertising of these products. PAHO is expected to promote in the coming months an advocacy campaign for Latin American countries to deepen their lines of action within the framework of the five-year plan to prevent obesity.

Hennis described the alarming reality lived by the population of Latin America and the Caribbean. In 2016, 1.9 million people died from complications resulting from poor nutrition. These deaths were caused by problems of hypertension, hyperglycemia and obesity, as starting points for the development of cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and other types of cancer. In other words, inadequate nutrition was responsible for more than half of the deaths in the region. The public officer emphasized the burden should not fall on individuals, but that governments should be responsible for regulating the accessibility of such foods and marketing.

Against this backdrop, specialists reiterated that PAHO’s Five-Year Plan is available to governments as an instrument that contains recommendations regarding the labelling of packaging, the prohibition of advertising of foods and beverages that increase the burden of non-communicable diseases, and the application of taxes on these products, or the increase in their prices through fiscal policies, in order to reduce their affordability.

Next steps

Faced with a scenario of worsening food crisis, PAHO encourages the adoption of measures to regulate the availability of ultra-processed food products in order to make people’s diets healthier, and thus care for their health.