UNSCN NUTRITION 44 United Nations System Standing Committee on Nutrition
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UNSCN NUTRITION 44 United Nations System Standing Committee on Nutrition Food environments: Where people meet the food system ACHIEVING HEALTHY AND SUSTAINABLE2019 FOOD ENVIRONMENTS FOR ALL PAGE 6 SUPPLY-SIDE MEASURES IMPROVING FOOD ENVIRONMENTS PAGE 10 DEMAND-SIDE MEASURES IMPROVING FOOD ENVIRONMENTS PAGE 71 ENABLING ACTIONS TO IMPROVE THE FOOD ENVIRONMENT PAGE 147 SPEAKERS’ CORNER PAGE 181 in this issue About UNSCN NUTRITION UNSCN NUTRITION is a publication issued by the United Nations System Standing Committee on Nutrition. It provides information on issues of importance to the field of international nutrition, bringing together contributions from actors around the globe. Individual authors are accountable and responsible for the content of their papers and the accuracy of the references provided. The content of UNSCN NUTRITION should not be considered an endorsement of the views contained therein and does not necessarily represent the views or official position of UNSCN or its constituencies. All website links and online information in this publication were accessible as of July 2019. The UNSCN NUTRITION Editorial Team would like to extend its sincere thanks to the external reviewers who provided such valuable feedback on Issue 44. To contribute to future issues of UNSCN NUTRITION or to be added to our mailing list, please email [email protected]. All manuscripts submitted for consideration will be reviewed, though publication is not guaranteed. Editorial Team: Christine Campeau, Denise Costa Coitinho Delmuè, Stineke Oenema. Acknowledgements: We would like to thank Inès Joffet for the reference check, Poilin Breathnach for the editing, Faustina Masini for the design and Alessandra Mora for her dedication to finalizing this publication. All rights reserved. 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Table of contents Chair’s round-up 2 Editorial 3 Achieving healthy and sustainable food environments for all 6 Supply-side measures improving food environments 10 • Promoting neglected and underutilized crops to boost nutrition in LMICs 10 • The nutrition, safety and health implications of food hawking in traffic 26 • Exploring socio-cultural aspects of the food environment: Study perspectives from Pakistan 33 • Advancing healthy and sustainable food environments: The Flathead Reservation case study 38 • The changing landscape of food deserts 46 • Farmers markets as a strategy for improving food environments 54 • Retail diversity for dietary diversity: Resolving food-safety versus nutrition priorities in Hanoi 61 Demand-side measures improving food environments 71 • The fight against non-communicable diseases: A snapshot of fatty-food taxation in Tonga 71 • Nutritional implications of Tibetan Plateau resettling and urbanization programmes 83 • Using legal frameworks to build healthy and sustainable food environments 91 • Announcement: Government action to encourage nutrition labelling 97 • The evolution and spread of industrial food: Building youth resilience through food and media literacy 99 • Improving the school food environment through policy: A case study of challenges and recommendations from Mexico 107 • The digital food environment 115 • Can dietary guidelines support the transformation of food systems to foster human and planetary health? 122 • The future of food pricing: Monitoring and novel policy targets 129 • Cash transfers and the food environment: Eight ways to improve diet quality 137 Enabling actions to improve the food environment 147 • The role of government in improving urban nutrition 147 • Transforming food environments through community-led action 153 • Food environments for a healthy and nutritious diet: The contribution of academia 160 • Last-mile nutrition: What role for the private sector? 169 Speakers’ corner 181 • Actions that make food value chains nutrition-sensitive: Brazil’s sodium-reduction policies 181 • Communities as food environments 185 • Vertical indoor production of vegetables to reduce micronutrient deficiencies in urban areas 188 Letter to the Editor 190 Obituary 191 2 UNSCN NUTRITION 44 – 2019 Chair’s round-up CORNELIA RICHTER UNSCN Chair Vice-President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development Dear UNSCN Nutrition reader, As Chair of the United Nations System Standing Committee We involve stakeholders at the local, regional and global on Nutrition, I am delighted to have the opportunity afforded level to ensure a multifaceted and collaborative approach by this year’s edition of UNSCN Nutrition to present valuable and to drive food security, safety and nutrition forward. research to help advance high-quality and nutritious diets for Over 41 years, we have adapted and innovated, together all. UNSCN Nutrition (previously UNSCN News) 44 gives leading with our UN partner agencies, to provide research-based global thinkers from various fields and disciplines the chance policy guidance that is applicable and relevant. Further, to share their insights on ways to improve food environments we are continuously strengthening the synergies between for better nutritional status and health. We selected this year’s the strategies, work plans and priorities of our Members theme as a springboard from which to better understand the and global intergovernmental processes, bridging thematic factors that influence people’s food choices within the wider discussions and the application of policies around the food system and which enable availability, affordability and world. This has been most visible in our ongoing work to access to healthier options. highlight how nutrition is both a connecting force between the Sustainable Development Goals and a catalyst to Currently, almost two billion people are overweight or achieving them. obese – a figure that continues to grow and, with it, the risk of non-communicable diseases. Simultaneously, Our efforts to support consistent and accountable delivery almost 821 million people are chronically undernourished, and concerted roll-out has meant closer collaboration with 149 million children under the age of five are affected by the UN Network for Scaling Up Nutrition. This harmonized stunting and 49.5 million suffer from wasting. Every country approach allows us to better identify national needs to is experiencing several forms of malnutrition and trends ensure that UNSCN delivers effective, responsive policy predict that the one in three people currently malnourished guidance. will soon become one in two. As Chair of UNSCN, it is my pleasure to work with Members To tackle these challenges UNSCN works with its partners as we advance through the United Nations Decade of Action to better understand why and how diets, lifestyles and food on Nutrition towards a more just and sustainable world. environments are changing and how food systems need to respond accordingly. We challenge ourselves to systematically analyse food-system dynamics, as well as the various causes of malnutrition, to assess how issues of equity, equality and Cornelia Richter non-discrimination are impacted by nutrition. UNSCN Chair EDITORIAL 3 Editorial CHRISTINE CAMPEAU DENISE COSTA COITINHO DELMUÈ STINEKE OENEMA Every day, people buy and consume food through their food domains of food environments. The external domain includes environment. This can be defined as the interface between dimensions such as availability, prices, vendor and product people’s diet and the wider food system. It encompasses properties, and marketing and promotion, while the personal people’s ability to access nutritious food in an affordable domain includes the dimensions highlighted by Herforth and and convenient way. It is further shaped by external factors, Ahmed. All of these concepts, especially the Turner et al. such as the price and availability of food, as well as its framework, have been widely cited by authors throughout taste, the marketing that goes into promoting food and the this publication. regulations that govern it. But how useful is the concept of the food environment and The food environment has been conceptualized in various what purpose does it serve? Does it increase understanding ways, thanks to the work of many researchers over the past of how people interact with the wider food system and how decade. The 2017 report by the High Level Panel of Experts on dietary preferences evolve? Does it provide valuable insights Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE) defines it as “the physical, into how these dietary shifts lead to a greater prevalence economic, political and sociocultural context in which consumers of overweight, obesity and deaths from non-communicable engage with the food system to make their decisions about diseases? Does it explain the health effects of population acquiring, preparing and consuming food” (HLPE, 2017). movements from rural to urban settings? Others, including the Food and Agriculture Organization of The food environment is highly dynamic, interactive and the United Nations (FAO), have defined the food environment constantly evolving, which makes it difficult to grasp. It more in terms of food itself, namely, “all