Obese to outnumber hungry – United Nations

MANILA, Philippines — The number of obese people in the world would soon overtake the number of those suffering from hunger, which accounted for 821 million in 2017, the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations said.

“This has already happened in Latin America and the Caribbean since 2015,” FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva said.

According to Da Silva, the “globalization of obesity” is a more complex nutrition problem that looms large as more than two billion people are overweight, of whom 670 million are obese.

The FAO chief noted that while hunger is circumscribed to specific areas, particularly in conflict zones and areas affected by climate change, obesity is everywhere. 

“We are witnessing the globalization of obesity: eight of the 20 countries in the world with the fastest rising rates of adult obesity are in Africa, for example,” he said.

Da Silva stressed that obesity is associated with many chronic diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease, hypertension and some forms of cancer and costs about $2 trillion per year in direct healthcare and lost productivity. 

“This is equivalent to the impact of smoking or the impact of armed conflicts nowadays,” he added.

In order to improve people’s diets, local farmers need to be encouraged to use their land to cultivate a variety of nutrient-rich crops, including fruits and vegetables, FAO said, and this can be done, for example, by introducing policies and legislation to ensure institutional procurement from local family farmers.

Among the major drivers of obesity and the deficiency of micronutrients, Da Silva named the high consumption of ultra-processed food. 

“Ultra-processed food contains little to no nutritional value, with a high content of saturated fats, refined sugars, salt and chemical additives,” he said, noting that such products are usually cheaper and easier to access than fresh food, particularly for poor people in urban areas.

“We need not only to produce food, but to produce food that is healthy and nutritious in a way that preserves the environment. Healthy food for all, based on sustainable agricultural development: this is FAO’s goal,” he said.

FAO pointed out that most of the food consumed in the world comes from family farmers and their contribution goes beyond just food production.

However, FAO said family farmers are facing multiple challenges including higher temperatures, erratic weather patterns, increased desertification and water scarcity, as well as the outbreak of pests and diseases which need to be urgently addressed.

In this context, Da Silva highlighted the importance of the upcoming UN Decade of Family Farming, approved by the United Nations General Assembly last year and is aimed at strengthening support to the vulnerable rural communities in the world. 

FAO and Caritas Internationalis, a confederation of Catholic relief, development and social service organizations, have a long history of collaboration on themes of mutual interest related to the fight against hunger and poverty worldwide.

The FAO chief said to address the interconnected problems of hunger, obesity and climate change, the international community needs to introduce regulations and standards that transform food systems so that they provide, in sustainable ways, healthy and nutritious food for everyone.

Da Silva talked about the globalization of obesity during a meeting by Ministers of Agriculture of the G20 in Niigata, Japan last May 11 to discuss investment priorities for sustainable agricultural development.