By José Graziano da Silva
ROME, May 5 2015 (IPS)

In the last half-century, people’s lifestyles have changed dramatically. Life expectancy has risen almost everywhere, but this has been accompanied by an increase of so-called non-communicable diseases (NCDs) – such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer, respiratory diseases, and diabetes – causing more and more deaths in all corners of the world.

José Graziano da Silva. Credit: FAO/Alessandra Benedetti

My distinguished colleague Dr Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), has called the worldwide rise of NCDs a “slow-motion catastrophe”. If NCDs were once considered the scourge of the developed world, this is no longer true; they now disproportionally affect low- and middle-income countries where nearly three-quarters of NCD deaths – 28 million per year – occur.

Much of the rise of NCDs can be attributed to unhealthy diets. WHO estimates that 2.7 million deaths every year are attributable to diets low in fruits and vegetables. Globally unhealthy diets are estimated to cause about 19 percent of gastrointestinal cancer, 31 percent of ischaemic heart disease, and 11 percent of strokes, thus making diet-related NCDs one of the leading preventable causes of death worldwide.

In other words, diet determines health – just as bad diets can lead to disease, healthy diets can contribute to good health.

But what exactly is a healthy diet? This is a difficult question. Generally, a healthy diet must provide the right nutrients in the right balance and with sufficient diversity, limiting the intake of free sugars to less than 10 percent of total energy requirements, and keeping salt intake to less than 5 grams per day.“There is no one-size-fits-all healthy diet. A healthy diet must be affordable, based on locally available foodstuffs, and meet cultural preferences”

However, there is no one-size-fits-all healthy diet. A healthy diet must be affordable, based on locally available foodstuffs, and meet cultural preferences. For over 20 years, FAO, together with WHO, has worked with governments on national Food-Based Dietary Guidelines: short, science-based, tips on healthy eating, in accordance with local values, customs and tradition.

Healthy meals do not always taste or look the same. Take, for example, the Mediterranean and Japanese diets: very healthy and completely different.

The Mediterranean diet revolves around the consumption of legumes, cereals, fruits and vegetables, olive oil, fish, and moderate consumption of dairy products (mostly cheese and yogurt). It emphasises unprocessed, plant-based foods, such as fruits and vegetables, in addition to the consumption of beans, nuts, cereals and other seeds; olive oil is the main source of (unsaturated) fat.

Japanese cuisine, on the other hand, is often associated with sushi (raw fish with rice), and sashimi (fresh raw seafood). The Japanese diet emphasises at least seven ingredients: fish as a major source of protein; vegetables including daikon radish and sea vegetables; rice; soya (tofu, miso, soya sauce); noodles; fruit; and tea (preferably green).

The Japanese and Mediterranean diets are examples of healthy diets. They use a great variety of ingredients; they are rich in plant foods including vegetables and fruit, legumes and fibres; they are modest in red meat; and they utilise many natural herbs and spices instead of salt to flavour food.

Both diets are linked to peoples and cultures as much as to their natural environment: it therefore comes as no surprise that both the Mediterranean diet and the Japanese diet have made it onto UNESCO’s World’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list.

The health benefits of the Japanese and Mediterranean diets are promising. Japanese enjoy one of the longest average life spans in the world – 87 years for women and 80 for men. In Mediterranean countries such as Italy and Spain, women have a life expectancy of 85 years. The figure for Italian men is 80 years, the same as their Japanese counterparts. All of them are above the average of high-income countries: 82 years for women and 76 years for men.

Medical research also indicate that that the Japanese diet leads to the lowest prevalence in the world of obesity – only 2.9% for Japanese women – and other chronic diseases like osteoporosis, heart ailments and some cancers. On the other hand, the Mediterranean diet, if followed for a number of years, is known to reduce the risk of developing heart disease, cancer, hypertension, Type 2 diabetes, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease.

In sum, adhering to a healthy diet helps you to not only to live longer, but also to have a better quality of life. Conversely, a bad diet causes malnutrition and can expose you to a range of NCDs.

A modern paradox is that many countries – including developing countries – suffer from undernourishment on the one hand, and obesity and diet-related diseases on the other. And while FAO’s chief concern is to eradicate hunger in this world, we cannot separate food security from nutrition. FAO – together with our U.N. agencies – considers food and nutrition security a basic human right.

In all cases, the cost of malnutrition goes beyond the health of the individual: it affects society as a whole in terms of public health costs and loss of productivity, and, therefore, is an issue that must be addressed through public and coordinated action.

Last year’s Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2), organised jointly by FAO and WHO, sent a clear message in that direction. The two outcome documents of ICN2, the Rome Declaration on Nutrition and the Framework for Action that commit world leaders to establishing national policies aimed at eradicating malnutrition and making nutritious diets available to all.

A key message from ICN2 is: governments have a central role to play in creating a healthy food environment to enable people to adopt healthy dietary practices. Yes, it is consumers who choose what to eat, but it is the government’s role to provide the enabling environment that encourages and makes healthy choices possible. (END/COLUMNIST SERVICE)

Edited by Phil Harris   

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

Excerpt:

SILENT SUFFERING: MEN, MANHOOD AND HIV

By Mercedes Sayagues
Cape Town, Dec 18 2014 (IPS)

Across Africa, men have lower rates than women for HIV testing, antiretroviral treatment enrollment and adherence, viral load suppression and survival.

Generally, of all people on antiretroviral treatment (ART) in Africa, just over one-third are men.

The disparity can be even more dramatic: in South Africa, in 2012, half the number of men were taking the life-saving drugs compared to women: 1.3 million women and 651,000 men.

At the core of this inequality are socially constructed ideas of masculinity. To be a man means being strong, to ignore pain and symptoms. Hospitals are for women and children.

As a result, men test for HIV and start ART late, sometimes too late to beat the virus.

Manhood brings a mix of personal costs and benefits. Among the costs are men’s poor mental and physical health, and their difficulty to talk about their feelings.

It’s not considered macho to share personal problems. This is one reason why men hesitate to join support groups to help them cope with treatment.

Experts recommend setting up men-friendly clinics with opening hours suitable for working men, recruiting male champions to encourage men to join HIV support groups, and routine co-testing of couples at antenatal clinics.

Japanese men heading to work - they continue to dominate work space, Credit: Daan Bauwens/IPS.

By Daan Bauwens
TOKYO, Jan 31 2013 (IPS)

Despite anti-discrimination laws and a steadily growing number of employed women, Japan is falling behind the rest of the world on gender equality. Widespread discrimination persists, and has only grown more subtle over the past years.

Japan is one of the world’s most industrialised countries but has always kept true to its old traditions. In the same way, traditional gender roles have always been a source of inequality in the world’s third largest economy. According to the United Nations Development Programme, Japan has consistently ranked as the most unequal of the world’s richest countries.

And the gap seems to be widening: last October the World Economic Forum’s annual report on gender gaps downgraded Japan’s rank from 99 to 101, alongside Tajikistan and Gambia in terms of political and social equality.

To Yuko Ogasawara, professor of sociology at Tokyo’s Nihon University, Japan’s downgrading doesn’t come as a surprise. “In this country it is still impossible to combine work and family.” she tells IPS. “That is the main reason behind the inequality. People, whether men or women, are expected to work until ten every day. If you want to raise a family that’s an obvious obstacle.”

Fifteen years ago Ogasawara published ‘Office Ladies and Salaried Men’, a book describing the typical Japanese office space where women were supposed to handle clerical work and serve tea while men could climb up the executive ladder. “Much has changed since then,” Ogasawara tells IPS. “There are more female executives now, women are given more chances. But one problem remains: 70 percent of women drop out of the work force after having their first baby.”

“After raising their children, it is very difficult for many women to come back,” says Kathy Matsui, a macro economist at one of Japan’s largest banks who has been studying employment of Japanese women since 1999.

“Oftentimes the problem is situated within organisations and their evaluation systems,” she tells IPS. “Most human resources departments reject women when they have a ten-year blank in their curriculum. For them, that suggests that you must have forgotten everything you ever learned and therefore are not suitable for hiring. That is subtle discrimination.”

“Women who do want to relaunch their careers can only get part-time jobs with a low wage,” Yuko Ogasawara adds. “They are very cheap compared to full-time workers, so lots of companies want to keep the system as it is. It provides cheap labour force.’

Discrimination is deeply engrained into the country’s institutions. “Japan has got numerous anti-discrimination laws,” says Yoshiyuki Takeuchi, professor of economy at the University of Osaka, “but still tax, pension, social security and health insurance are based on the model of a four-person family with a working father and a stay-at-home mother.

“In Japan, companies pay men a higher salary if their wives stay home. Women who restart as part-timers can only earn a limited amount of money. These are rules and regulations that were developed during the seventies based on the economic reality of that time. They have barely changed since then. Nowadays they keep women from trying to restart a career.”

At the same time, Japan’s economic reality is changing very rapidly. The country is deeply troubled by economic stagnation that started 20 years ago. The population is aging very rapidly, the birth rate is declining, and the country’s population is projected to shrink by around 30 percent by 2055.

“The work force is shrinking and Japan is not very open to immigration,” Kathy Matsui tells IPS. “There’s no other solution than to use your existing population more. Women comprise 50 percent of the Japanese population, they are highly educated but stop working at a certain age. There are no other options than to take measures to try keeping women on the working track. This is not a feminist point of view but the objective analysis of an economist.”

However, Japanese society doesn’t seem very willing to accept the idea. A poll conducted by the Japanese government in December showed that 51 percent of the population thinks women should stay at home and care for the family while their husbands work.

That was 10.3 percent more than the view in a similar survey in 2009. The increase was particularly noticeable in the age category 20 to 30.

“Today’s young generation knows what it means to grow up with a working mother,” says Suzanne Akieda, a Belgian archaeologist who has been living and teaching in Japan for more than 40 years. “In the past lots of Japanese women have tried to push aside their personal lives to pursue a career. Now many start to reconsider if that was the right thing to do. This is the backlash.” (END)