Читать книгу The Road to Good Nutrition - Группа авторов - Страница 106

As thoroughly recognized by the Scaling Up Nutrition movement, all stakeholders need to work together to prevent stunting, including governments, the United Nations network, donor networks, civil society, and the private sector. These stakeholders must work together at national, regional and global level, in order to ensure access to adequate nutrition for all - in particular women and young children - and to prevent disease, which for example requires action by the healthcare sector as well as implementation of hygiene and sanitation measures. The call for all stakeholders to work together is easily made, but requires the laying out of a strong, localized roadmap that clearly identifies areas and responsibilities for action for the different stakeholder groups. Division of tasks within stakeholder groups should be done transparently. Tracking of implementation and progress is key to ensuring that the country stays on track relative to its roadmap.

It is increasingly recognized that the private sector, particularly the food industry, plays a critical role in achieving adequate nutrition and preventing stunting, and has to take that role even more seriously. The increase of the average height of populations in the US, Europe, and parts of East Asia and Latin America in the second half of the 20th century coincided with dramatic economic development, and because access to healthcare, water and sanitation, and primary education was already good and did not change much during this period in these parts of the world, the improvement of nutritional status was to a large extent due to better access on the part of the lower economic strata of these populations to a more diverse diet, including improved, processed, complementary foods as well as animal-source foods such as dairy products. A good example is the average height of the Dutch male population, which increased from 165 cm in 1935 to 185 cm at the end of the 20th century. Increased height, which reflects better nutrition, is associated with higher IQ, a lower risk of cardiovascular diseases, but a slight increase of some kind of cancers, however, overall with a more healthy population.

The ten countries with the fastest annual reduction of stunting between 1990 and 2010

The increase since the 1960s of cardiovascular diseases, obesity, type 2 diabetes, cancers, and other chronic diseases related to overconsumption of foods with a high content of fats and/or sugars but at the same time a low content of vitamins, minerals and other essential nutrients, however, has further complicated the nutrition field. This requires corrective action from the food and beverage manufacturers.

This is also where the collaboration of the private sector with governments (who have legislative and norm-setting responsibilities) and civil society, donors and UN (who, for example, are important partners in healthcare, education and promoting consumer awareness of health and nutrition) is important, and the only way to ensure adequate nutrition for all.