Two years have elapsed since who passed its global strategy -- in May 2004 -- on diet, physical activity and health but the world is still nowhere near engaging industry and consumers on issues relating to healthy lifestyles, of which diet is a crucial element. A meeting in Delhi on September 18, 2006, by the Global Alliance for the Prevention of Obesity and Related Chronic Disease, was a welcome attempt to engage with the specifics of the Indian dimensions of the problem, even if it demonstrated how poorly equipped we are to tackle it.
India is one of the 10 countries that have been identified by who as a seeding bed for working out its global strategy on obesity, especially among children. It has a history of state failure, lacking the will to get the implementation process on song that makes it a somewhat oddball choice as a model.
India has, however, been identified because it faces a major obesity problem and linked chronic diseases, as have Malaysia Singapore, Thailand Hong Kong, Pakistan, Brazil, Canada, China and a group of Pacific Ocean islands. Political considerations, such as balancing ethnic and religious communities, also played a role in who's calculations. The global alliance was formed on February 22, 2005, with the task of implementing obesity prevention plans.
The meeting brought together researchers in the field of nutrition and health to assess whether enough evidence was available to formulate workable policies. What the members of the meeting discovered was that some data was available, but it was scattered and there was no consensus on the policies needed. Philip James, chairperson of the alliance, warned that the government might not do much to set down policies because they were under corporate pressure. More has to be done at individual and community levels, he suggests.
The agenda, as currently envisaged, will now be managed by a national alliance under the guidance of the global alliance. "Though the problems that India faces are not the same as those of the developed world as yet, the entry of major investors like Reliance and Sunil Mittal into the food industry makes it essential that we position ourselves in advance and ensure that they provide healthy rather than unhealthy food," says K Srinath Reddy, president of the Public Health Foundation of India (phfi). There are suggestions that phfi will be used as a platform to engage with the government. The engagement is being seen in a broad-spectrum format at national consultation in 2005, 16 ministries and departments had been identified as crucial for the fight against obesity and chronic diseases.
The civil society-government group has, at its disposal, recommendations for the national plan of action for the implementation of a strategy developed in April 2005, independent of the global initiative. Amongst these are plans to prevent the food industry from targeting children and vulnerable groups through advertising campaigns.
Uphill task The experience of other countries has, however, proved that this kind of legislation is not easy to enforce. In the first week of September, when the health select committee of the New Zealand parliament questioned food companies including the representatives of fast-food chain McDonald's and soft drink-manufacturer Coca-Cola, they said that there is little evidence that restrictions on their products would cut obesity rates. They cited the example of Sweden, where there was a ban on advertising unhealthy foods to children, but the obesity rate was 21 per cent, just 3 per cent lower than in New Zealand.
The companies went on to actually suggest that restricting advertising would be harmful.
