Page 3 - The 13th Session Codex Committee on Contaminants in Foods (CCCF)

https://www.thejakartapost.com/academia/2019/04/23/
expanding-food-safety-norms-for-nutrition.html

Expanding food safety norms for Some projections estimate that the number of
nutrition obese people will soon overtake the number of

On April 23, the World Trade Organization is people suffering from hunger — 821 million
people in 2017. This has already happened in
hosting the International Trade and Food
Latin America and the Caribbean region.
Safety Conference in Geneva. It is a
continuation of the debates to discuss the In fact, while hunger is circumscribed to
future of food safety, which started in Addis specific areas, particularly conflict areas,

Ababa, Ethiopia, last February, in a successful obesity is everywhere. The world is witnessing
event co-organized by the Food and the globalization of obesity. In fact, 7 percent

Agriculture Organization of the United Nations of youth between 5 and 19 years old are obese
(FAO), the World Health Organization (WHO) today, up from less than 1 percent some 40

and the African Union. years ago. And obesity is not only a rich-world

problem; eight of the 20 countries with the
Food safety is associated, rightly, with the risk
of food-borne illness caused by unwanted fastest rising rates are in Africa.
bacteria such as E. coli or listeria, or fungal The consumption of ultra-processed food is

pathogens such as aflatoxin. The main such one of the main reasons behind the alarming
hazards are responsible for around 600 million and growing levels of obesity — and associated

people falling ill each year and 420,000 deaths non-communicable diseases such as diabetes
around the world, with the populations of and hypertension — which ultimately costs

Africa and Southeast Asia bearing the highest about US$2 trillion a year in global healthcare
burden. costs and lost economic productivity.

However, the time is ripe to expand our And yet large amounts of that ultra-processed
understanding of what is at stake. Food safety food — typically loaded with saturated fats,

cannot be only about preventing people from refined sugar, salt and chemical additives — is
getting food poisoning or falling sick due to still considered safe for consumption.

food-borne illnesses, but must tackle the full
It is time to explore robust rules and
spectrum of diet-related health risks
regulations that effectively encourage the
This is particularly the case of obesity. Globally, production, trade, sale and consumption of

there are more than 670 million obese adults. healthy and nutritious foods.

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