WHO hits out at junk food companies as ‘twin-pronged’ nutrition crisis hits global growth and development goals

The World Health Organization has hit out at the world's largest processed food manufacturers, accusing them of fuelling a new global health crisis.

Modern diets are causing major obesity and under-nutrition challenges worldwide, according to a new four-paper series published today in The Lancet in cooperation of the WHO.

The series – entitled The Double Burden of Malnutrition – argues that dysfunctional food markets are endangering global growth and development as they do not efficiently deliver the nutrition that people need to grow and prosper.

One the one hand, millions of children are growing up stunted for a lack of nutritious foods, while others are falling victim to a wide range of conditions and cancers linked to obesity because of an oversupply of junk food.

The twin problems can co-exist in the same geographies and even households. There prevalence is rapidly increasing across both the developed and developing world.

In a press conference organised to launch the Lancet paper, the WHO said multinational food giants were refusing to voluntary reduce sugar and salt levels in food.

According to Unicef, just 100 companies control 77 per cent of processed food sales worldwide and the rise of junk food diets are the “single most important driver” of both obesity and undernourishment worldwide.

The WHO said these companies were doing little to tackle the problems they have caused.

“What we see from the food industry is inadequate,” said Dr Francesco Branca, director of the department of nutrition for health and development at the WHO. “It is either not ambitious enough, does not cover the reality of low and middle income countries, or it’s only done by a subset of those companies.”

He added that while the 12 largest conglomerates are in dialogue with the WHO and have agreed to cut out industrial trans fat by 2023, it has been “more difficult” to secure voluntary commitments on reducing sugar and salt.

“We need a global effort to have more products that do not contain sugar,” Dr Branca said.

The Lancet warns of a global nutrition crisis, with a third of low and middle income countries struggling to cope both with high rates of both obesity and undernourishment.

Worldwide it is estimated estimated that 2.3 billion people are overweight while 150 million children are stunted.

The latest study found that in 48 of 126 low and middle income countries, these issues overlap in individuals, families and communities.

“We can no longer characterise countries as low-income and undernourished, or high-income and only concerned with obesity,” said Dr Branca.

“All forms of malnutrition have a common denominator – food systems that fail to provide all people with healthy, safe, affordable and sustainable diets”.

The Lancet paper calls for the regulation of food markets to be “radically re-examined” in order to get them functioning more efficiently.

“For food systems to deliver healthy, safe, affordable, and sustainable diets for all, we must address the underlying drivers that incentivise endless market and consumption growth over human and planetary health,” it says.

“Meaningful change will require action across food systems – from production and processing, through trade and distribution, pricing, marketing, and labelling, to consumption and waste – driven from the bottom up by communities, cities, regions, and nations”.

Katie Dain, chief executive of the Non Communicable Disease Alliance (NCD Alliance), welcomed the report.

“This report reiterates that malnutrition has many faces, and diet-related NCDs like cancers, diabetes, heart disease and obesity are now two sides of the same coin,” she said.

“The globalisation of processed junk food has brought us all to this precipice, and getting off it will require swift, coordinated and creative action from a range of decision makers across society who recognise the value in ensuring healthy diets for all in all countries”.

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