Julio Berdegué, FAO representative for Latin America and the Caribbean, presents the region's Panorama of Food and Nutrition 2018 in Santiago, which has bad news due to the increase in hunger, malnutrition, overweight and obesity for the third consecutive year. Credit: Orlando Milesi/IPS

By Orlando Milesi
SANTIAGO, Nov 7 2018 (IPS)

“For the third consecutive year there is bad news” for Latin America and the Caribbean, where the numbers of hungry people have increased to “39.3 million people,” or 6.1 percent of the population, Julio Berdegué, FAO’s regional representative, said Wednesday.

At the regional headquarters of the United Nations agency in Santiago, Berdegué presented the conclusions of the Panorama of Food and Nutrition Security 2018, which brings more bad news: malnutrition and obesity also increased, in a situation closely linked to the persistence of inequality in the countries of the region.

The report was prepared jointly by the regional division of four U.N. agencies: FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation), the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the World Food Programme (WFP).

The four organisations called on governments in the region to implement public policies that combat inequality and promote healthy and sustainable food systems."There is no material or scientific reason to justify hunger...We are issuing a wake-up call to governments and societies." -- Julio Berdegué

“There is no material or scientific reason to justify hunger,” Berdegué said during the presentation, pointing out that for the past five years, no progress has been made in the region, and that it has in fact slid backwards for the past three years.

“We are issuing a wake-up call to governments and societies,” he said.

The regional representative highlighted the case of Colombia where “peace has begun to pay dividends in the eradication of hunger,” referring to the positive effects of the peace deal reached by the government and the FARC guerrillas in 2016.

At the other extreme, Venezuela became one of the countries with the greatest number of hungry people: 3.7 million – 11.7 percent of the population.

Since 2014, the number of undernourished people has grown in Argentina, Bolivia and Venezuela. The largest rise occurred in Venezuela, with an increase of 600,000 people from 2014 to 2017, according to the Panorama.

Other countries severely affected by hunger are Haiti – five million people, equivalent to 45.7 percent of the population – and Mexico – 4.8 million people, representing 3.8 percent of the population.

However, in both Haiti and Mexico, hunger has declined in the last three years. The same is true in Colombia and the Dominican Republic. But these are the only four countries in the region that managed to reduce hunger since 2014.

“If Haiti can do it (reduce hunger), all of the other countries can, too,” Berdegué said emphatically.

According to the Panorama, the rate at which the number of hungry people in the region grew accelerated: between 2015 and 2016 the number of undernourished increased by 200,000, but between 2016 and 2017, it grew by twice that number: 400,000 people.

For Berdegué, the numbers are dramatic because “it’s not about being closer to the goal of zero hunger (by 2030). The goal is not a few less hungry people,” he said, noting that this is a food-producing and -exporting region, where “there is no lack of food, what is missing is money to buy it.”

He added that serious food insecurity affects 47.1 million people in Latin America and the Caribbean, and said “the worst thing is that most of them live in South America, the richest part of the region. How is it possible that 62 percent of the hungry are in South America?”

The report establishes a close link between economic and social inequality and higher levels of hunger, obesity and malnutrition.

Five million children suffer from hunger, children in the poorest segment of the population, who are “condemned to a very limited life,” Berdegué said.

He pointed out that the four U.N. agencies found a correlation between hunger and belonging to some ethnic groups.

Referring to indigenous groups, he noted that “In Peru, 25 percent of Quechua children and 23 percent of Aymara children suffer from chronic malnutrition, while at the national level the proportion is 16 percent.”

At the same time, the number of obese people is growing by 3.6 million each year, and today one in four adults in the region are obese. And some 250 million people are overweight: 60 percent of the regional population.

Overweight affects 3.9 million children under the age of five, more than the global average of 5.6 per cent, the report says.

“It’s a rampant and out of control epidemic. We have never eaten so badly. We have to make a shift towards a healthy and nutritious diet,” Berdegué said.

He added that 18 countries in the region produce fruits and vegetables, but export most of them.

“It is essential to regulate fats and salt content in food. There are many people who can’t afford to eat healthy. School curricula should include healthy eating,” Berdegué said, suggesting possible solutions to deal with the epidemic.

Carissa F. Etienne, director of PAHO, said that “although malnutrition persists in the region, particularly in vulnerable populations, obesity and overweight also particularly affect these groups.”

“A multisectoral approach is needed, ranging from ensuring access to balanced and healthy food to addressing other social factors that also impact on these forms of malnutrition, such as access to education, water and sanitation, and health services,” she said in a connection from the organisation’s Washington headquarters.

In her view, “we must make progress in access to universal health so that all people can receive the care and prevention measures they need with regard to malnutrition and its long-term consequences.”

The Panorama states that hunger, malnutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, overweight and obesity especially affect lower-income people, women, indigenous people, blacks and rural families in the region.

In Latin America, 8.4 percent of women face severe food insecurity, compared to 6.9 percent of men, and indigenous populations are more food insecure than non-indigenous populations.

In 10 countries, children from the poorest 20 percent of households suffer three times more stunting than the richest 20 percent.

According to the report, one of the main causes of the rise in malnutrition among particularly vulnerable population groups is changes in the region’s food systems and food cycle from production to consumption.

The greatest effects occur in the most excluded sectors which, although they have increased their consumption of healthy foods such as milk and meat, often have to opt for products high in fats, sugar and salt because they are cheaper.

With respect to the gender divide, the Panorama reports that 19 million women suffer from severe food insecurity, compared to 15 million men.

In all of the countries, the obesity rate for adult women is higher than for men; in 19 countries, the obesity rate for women is at least 10 percentage points higher than for men.

“Gender equity is a valuable policy instrument to reduce inequalities. We need to strengthen it in practice, which involves promoting equality in access to and control of household resources, as well as in decisions to empower women,” said Miguel Barreto, WFP regional director, from Panama City.

FAO acting regional representative Eve Crowley (C) during the launch of the Panorama of Food and Nutrition Security in Latin America and the Caribbean 2016, at FAO headquarters in Santiago. The report , where it was warned that overweight affects 360 million people in the region. Credit: FAO

By Orlando Milesi
SANTIAGO, Jan 20 2017 (IPS)

In Latin America and the Caribbean 360 million people are overweight, and 140 million are obese, warned the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the Panamerican Health Organisation (PAHO).

“The rise in obesity is very worrying. At the same time the number of people who suffer from hunger has diminished in the region. We need to strengthen our efforts and have food systems with improved nutrition based on sustainable production methods to reduce those figures,” Eve Crowley, FAO acting regional representative, said Thursday at the organisation‘s headquarters in Santiago.

At the regional FAO office in Santiago on Thursday Jan. 19 the two organisations launched the Panorama of Food and Nutrition Security in Latin America and the Caribbean 2016, which sounded the alarm about the phenomenon in this region of just over 625 million people.

The problem, highlighted the report, largely affects children and women, increasing chronic diseases, driving up medical expenses for countries and individuals, and posing a threat to the quality of the future labour force that national development plans will require.

At the same time, the region has considerably reduced hunger: today only 5.5 per cent of the population of Latin America and the Caribbean is undernourished, the Caribbean being the area with the highest prevalence (19.8 per cent), largely because Haiti has the highest malnutrition rate in the world: 53.4 per cent.

Chronic child malnutrition (low height for age) in Latin America and the Caribbean also dropped, from 24.5 per cent in 1990 to 11.3 per cent in 2015, which translates into a decrease of 7.8 million children.

Despite the progress made, currently 6.1 million children still suffer from chronic malnutrition: 3.3 million in South America, 2.6 million in Central America, and 200,000 in the Caribbean. About 700,000 million children suffer from acute malnutrition, 1.3 per cent of them under the age of five.

Asked whether the difficulty of access to natural, good quality foods is due to the high prices or to a flawed production and distribution system, Crowley told IPS that it is “a combination of factors“.

“We talk about a food system because it involves a set of factors – from supplies to which foods are available at a national level. For example in Latin America there is a great availability of sugary foods and meat. But ensuring physical availability and access to nutritious, healthy, affordable fresh food in every neighborhood is still hard to achieve,” she said.

“There is evidence that food high in bad calories, from ultra-processed sources, is less expensive than healthy food, and this poses a dilemma to guaranteeing good nutrition for the entire population, particularly people in low-income households,” she said.

Crowley said there are changes in consumption patterns, with people shifting away from their traditional diets based on legumes, cereals, fruits and vegetables toward super-processed foods rich in saturated fats, sugar and sodium, which are backed by extensive advertising.

A girl wearing traditional dress from Bolivia’s highlands region shows a basket with fruit during a school exhibit in La Paz to promote good eating habits among students.. Programmes to promote healthy eating are spreading through schools in Latin America, to address problems such as malnutrition and overweight. Credit: Franz Chávez/IPS

She called for better information, nutrition warnings, taxes on unhealthy foods, and subsidies for healthy foods necessary for the population.

With the exception of Haiti (38.5 per cent), Paraguay (48.5 per cent) and Nicaragua (49.4 per cent), overweight affects more than half of the population of the countries in the region, with Chile (63 per cent), Mexico (64 per cent) and the Bahamas (69 per cent) showing the highest rates, states the report.

Erick Espinoza, a physical education teacher in a private school in a middle-class neighborhood in Santiago, sees the problem of the change in eating and behavioural habits of his students, aged six to 10, which is a reflection of what is happening throughout the region, and in particular in the countries with the highest overweight and obesity rates.

“As snacks, they don’t bring fruit, only potato chips, crackers or cookies, fizzy drinks, juice or milk high in sugar. And they don’t just bring a small package, but sometimes two or three packages or even a big one,” he told IPS, referring to the snack during recess.

Since 2016, kiosks that sell food in Chilean schools have been prohibited from selling foods high in sugar, sodium or fat. “They have to sell fruit, but the kiosk is not doing well because the children don’t buy fruit or yoghurt, but bring other things from home,“ said the teacher.

Alexandra Carmona, a teacher at a municipal school for children aged four to 17 in a low-income neighborhood in Santiago, pointed to a different problem.

“There was an obese boy who was really bullied. Everybody would say ‘hey fattie‘, ‘hey grease ball‘. So I called the parents to tell them what was happening, but they didn’t give it any importance,“ she told IPS. The boy ended up in a special school even though he had no learning disability.

At her school, the school provides meals, but many children won‘t accept the legumes and balanced diet that is offered.

The Panorama reports that 7.2 per cent of children under five years old in the region are overweight, which means a total of 3.9 million children, including 2.5 million in South America, 1.1 million in Central America and 200,000 in the Caribbean.

The countries with the highest rates of overweight in children under five years old are Barbados (12 per cent), Paraguay (11.7 per cent), Argentina (9.9 per cent), and Chile (9.3 per cent).

The report also points out that several countries have adopted taxes on sugary beverages, including Barbados, Chile, Dominican Republic and Mexico, while others such as Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru and Chile have laws on healthy nutrition which regulate advertising and labeling of food products.

With respect to the countries that stand out in sales per person of ultra-processed products, the report says that Argentina, Chile, Mexico and Uruguay exceed the regional average of 129.6 kilograms per inhabitant. Mexico ranks first, with 214 kg per inhabitant, and Chile is second with 201.9 kg.

In 30 of the 33 countries studied , more than half of the population over 18 is overweight, and in 20 of them obesity among women is at least 10 percent higher than among men.

According to PAHO Director Carissa F. Etienne, “the region is facing a two-fold burden of malnutrition, which has to be fought with a balanced diet which includes fresh, healthy and nutritious foods, produced in a sustainable manner, besides addressing the main social factors that lead to malnutrition.”

In addition to the lack of access to healthy foods, she mentioned the difficulty of access to clean water and sewage services, education and health services, and social protection programmes, among others.

Schools around the world, like this one in Melilla, Uruguay, are trying to introduce healthy eating habits to bring down rates of obesity and overweight. Credit: Victoria Rodríguez/IPS

By Farangis Abdurazokzoda
WASHINGTON , May 31 2014 (IPS)

Over two billion people – or 30 percent of the world’s population – are either obese or overweight, and no country has successfully reduced obesity rates to date, according to a new study published this week by the British medical journal, The Lancet.

The number of overweight and obese people increased from 857 million in 1980 to 2.1 billion in 2013, according to the research, which was conducted by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Titled “Global, regional, and national prevalence of overweight and obesity in children and adults during 1980-2013,” the study calls obesity a “major public health epidemic” in both the developed and the developing regions of the world.

An individual is considered to be overweight if he or she has a Body Mass Index (BMI), or weight-to-height ratio, greater than or equal to 25 and lower than 30, while obesity is defined as having BMI equal to or greater than 30.

“Obesity is an issue affecting people of all ages and incomes, everywhere,” said Dr. Christopher Murray, director of IHME and a co-founder of the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study.

Not surprisingly, the largest proportion of the world’s obese people are found in the United States (13 percent).

In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Central America, and the island nations of the Pacific and the Caribbean, overweight and obesity rates have skyrocketed over the past 30 years – to 44 percent or higher.

Several oil-rich states in the MENA region – including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, and Libya – account for the world’s largest increase in obesity over the past generation.
But rates are also increasing the world’s two most populous nations – China and India. They currently account for 15 percent of the world’s overweight or obese population.

“These trends have nothing to do with genetics, but rather our lifestyle that has increasingly become indoors and immobile,” Ali Mokdad, who teaches at the University of Washington in Seattle, told IPS.

“We are paying the price for progress,” Mokdad, one of the study’s co-authors, added. “Machines have made our lives easier; thanks to machines, we can produce food faster and cheaper than ever, while microwaves make meals quick and easy. All these contribute to the problem.”

“It’s not a cosmetic issue, but a major risk factor for morbidity and mortality,” he said.
Particularly disturbing is the rise in obesity among children and adolescents. In the three decades covered by the study, the number of overweight or obese children and adolescents increased by 50 percent.

While in the developed world countries, 22 percent of girls and 24 percent of boys are overweight or obese, boys and girls in developing countries are catching up, as nearly 13 percent of them are overweight or obese.

“We know that there are severe downstream health effects from childhood obesity, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and many cancers. We need to be thinking now about how to turn this trend around,” said the study’s lead author Marie Ng.

The study stresses the need to mobilise not only the people, but also governments in the fight against obesity and its consequences.

“It’s not only the Ministry of Health that has to be concerned, but also the Ministry of Agriculture which needs to take into account how to build programmes and develop infrastructure in a way that would encourage people to be more healthy,” according to Mokdad.

He saluted U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama’s initiative “Let’s Move!” – a four-year-old effort “to end the epidemic of childhood obesity in a generation so that kids born today will grow up healthy.” In addition to encouraging exercise among youths, “Let’s Move!” urges schools to reduce the excessive consumption of sugar, salt, and fat and include more fruits and vegetables in meals served to students.

In a column published Thursday by the New York Times, the First Lady wrote that the U.S. spends 190 billion dollars a year treating obesity-related conditions in the general population. ”Just think about what those numbers will look like in a decade or two if we don’t start solving this problem now,” she wrote.

Her efforts have drawn criticism from right-wing Republican sectors and their allies in the press. The Wall Street Journal Thursday called Obama’s efforts “cuisine central planning” and cited recent statistics showing that consumption of federally funded school lunches has declined nearly four percent since the government’s new standards were first enforced, presumably because the recommended menus no longer included items popular with young consumers.

Qatar was found to suffer the highest rates of obesity and overweight at 73.9 percent, followed by Egypt (73.6 percent), Kuwait (73.4 percent), Libya (71.9 percent), Saudi Arabia (69.4 percent), Jordan (69.3 percent), Syria (69.1 percent), Mexico (68.9 percent), Iceland (68.5 percent), and the U.S. (67.4 percent).

Among South Americans, Chileans and Paraguayans led the region, with 66.1 percent and 63.9 percent, respectively.

In sub-Saharan Africa, where obesity and overweight were least prevalent among all regions, oil-rich Equatorial Guinea was the regional leader, with 58.7 percent of the population obese or overweight. It was followed by South Africa, at 52.9 percent, and another oil-rich country, Gabon, at 47.7 percent. In Ethiopia, by contrast, only 5.5 percent of the population was obese or overweight.

South and East Asia were also relatively slim, compared to wealthier regions. Malaysia was the heavyweight at 45.3 percent, followed by South Korea (33.2 percent), Pakistan (30.7 percent), and China (28.3 percent). By contrast, less than one out of five Indians were obese or overweight (19.5) percent.

The leanest, however, included Vietnam (12.4 percent), while North Korea and Timor Leste tied for the world’s lowest prevalence at 4.6 percent, according to the study. Rates in neighbouring Australia, on the other hand, neared those of the world’s heaviest, at 63.3 percent.

Most of the countries that are heaviest today, including Libya, Egypt, Iceland, as well as many wealthy countries, were also heaviest 30 years ago. But the obesity and overweight gap between them and most developing countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, has since closed.

In 1980 China, for example, only about ten percent of the population was overweight or obese – or about one-third of the percentage in 2012.

More country data can be found here.

Jim Lobe contributed to this article.