A United Nations investigator announced that unhealthy food poses a bigger threat than tobacco and should be taxed in the same way.
"Unhealthy diets are now a greater threat to global health than tobacco. Just as the world came together to regulate the risks of tobacco, a bold framework convention on adequate diets must now be agreed," Belgian professor Olivier de Schutter said, Reuters reported.
In 2005 a U.N. convention on tobacco control was put to play in hopes of reducing related deaths.
In a report to the rights council in 2012, de Schutter suggested taking a similar approach to unhealthy food. He said foods high in saturated fats, salt, and sugar, should be taxed. He also suggested "cracking down on junk food advertising," Reuters reported.
"It has been two years since my report on nutrition and the right to food, and ten years since the World Health Organization launched its Global Strategy on Diet Physical Activity and Health. Yet obesity continues to advance - and diabetes, heart disease and other health complications along with it. The warning signs are not being heard," De Schutter said in a United Nations Office at Geneva news release reported.
An overhaul on farm subsidies that that make certain ingredients cheaper than others" should be overhauled. Supporting local production to make healthy and fresh food more available could also help fight obesity, Reuters reported.
"Governments have been focusing on increasing calories availability, but they have often been indifferent to what kind of calories are on offer, at what price, to whom they are made available, and how they are marketed," De Schutter said.
The United Nations expert also highlighted the importance of breastfeeding and infant formula regulation.
"Governments should move forward with these measures, which are essential to ensure that people are protected from aggressive misinformation campaigns," he said. "They are also crucial to implement the World Health Organization's International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes and subsequent World Health Assembly recommendations. Suggestions that these steps could violate World Trade Organization law by restricting international trade are simply false," De Schutter said in the news release.
