Over 40 per cent of all adults now overweight –report

这fight against obesity and undernourishment stalled during the COVID-19 pandemic, with over 40 per cent of adults now obese or overweight, the world’s leading independent assessment of the state of global nutrition has found.

这2021全球营养报告(GNR), launched on Tuesday (23 November), also revealed that more than 149 million children worldwide are stunted, as commitments to end all forms of malnutrition yield little.

根据联合国的可持续发展目标2，各国致力于在2030年之前结束营养不良，其中包括营养不良和肥胖。

As well as looking set to miss the SDG 2 objectives, countries are also off track to meet the WHO’s global nutrition targets to tackle stunting, wasting, low birth weight, anaemia and overweight children, according to the report.

“One out of every three women is affected by malnutrition and one out of five children is too short for their age.”

Mariachiara Di Cesare, UK’s Middlesex University

该报告的主要作者，英国米德尔塞克斯大学的人口研究和全球健康专家Mariachiara Di Cesare说：“尽管有一些进展……人们仍然营养不足。”

“One out of every three women is affected by malnutrition and one out of five children is too short for their age,” she said.

自2010年以来，归因于饮食不良的死亡人数增长了15％ - 比同期每年的人口增长速度迅速。

“The high human, environmental and economic costs of continuing our current trajectory are so significant that we will pay a far higher price if we fail to act,” the report warns.

Out of 194 countries assessed, only 105 are on track to meet the target of tackling overweight children and over a quarter are on track to meet stunting and wasting targets.

“It’s not enough to just commit to these targets, but it is important to leverage resources towards sustainable approaches to tackle poor diet and malnutrition in all its forms,” said Marco Springmann, senior researcher in environmental sustainability and public health, at the University of Oxford, UK, a lead author of the report.

“为此，GNR团队开发了数据工具，不仅可以监控营养承诺的进度，还可以促进问责制。”

He observed that, while the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has pushed 155 million people into extreme poverty globally, had exacerbated malnutrition in most poor countries, rich countries in the west had not fared much better.

这WHO targets also include three to tackle diet-related non-communicable diseases (NCD), on adult obesity and diabetes, raised blood pressure, and salt intake. No country in Africa is on course to meet any of the diet-related NCD targets, and the only countries on course to meet both raised blood pressure and diabetes targets are a few high-income western nations.

该报告发现，水果和蔬菜的摄入量仍然比建议健康的四份份量低约50％。

Red meat

相比之下，红色和加工的肉类摄入量正在上升，几乎是每周一份最高水平的五倍，而含糖饮料的消费也在增长。

“We are increasingly witnessing deaths especially among children linked to diet or lack of it,” said Abdi Farah, an official from Somalia, where progress has been severely hampered by a combination of conflict, climate change, and COVID-19.

“We need urgent intervention to stem this tide through improved nutrition.”

实现营养目标所需的额外融资已经大大增加，特别是由于19号。

该报告称，在解决阻碍，浪费，产妇贫血和母乳喂养方面，在2022年至2030年之间，将需要大约108亿美元的额外融资。

相比之下，该报告预测，到2030年，到2030年，营养投资社会的总经济收益可能达到57万亿美元。

报告称，迫切需要政策计划来改变食品系统，增加健康食品的摄入量并减少基于动物的食物，以确保饮食对人和地球的健康和可持续性。

美国弗里德曼营养科学与政策学院的研究员兼副教授Shibani Ghosh说：“需要更多的资源和有针对性的行动来取得更好的营养成果。”

This piece was produced by SciDev.Net’s global desk.