Professor Amos Laar, Public Health Nutrition Lecturer at the University of Ghana, has urged the government to implement a nutrient profiling system to promote the consumption of healthy foods among Ghanaians.
He said colonial-era food-related policies had influenced the consumption of unhealthy foods in the country, thus there was the need to change the trend by implementing Ghana’s policy response through the implementation of a nutrient profiling policy.
The nutrient profiling system he said could be implemented through food labeling policy, food procurement policy, marketing restriction policy, and food fiscal policy.
Prof Laar made the call during an annual public lecture in the Sciences on Food and Public Health organised by the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences.
It was to reassert the links between food and public health as the speaker explored food from multiple perspectives.
It was on the topic: ‘Food and Public Health. If it’s not safe, it’s not food, and if it’s not healthy, it’s not good food: Unpacking Current Consensus and Tensions in the Food and Public Health Nutrition Landscape’.
The implementation of the nutrient profiling policy, he said, would improve the food environment in the country and lead to the availability of healthy foods.
‘We are going to have some of the food environment policies implemented with the direction of the nutrient profiling system.
‘So, we are working to develop food labeling policies, develop food procurement policies as well as food fiscal policies through the provision of subsidies in healthy foods and marketing restrictions policies as well,’ he said.
Prof Laar said the implementation of the policy would compel food environment actors to take immediate steps or strategic measures to reduce the production, processing, and retailing of unhealthy foods.
He added that the healthiness of food or lack thereof was influenced by multiple factors, including food marketing, food fraud, policy, politics, justice, democracy, and the food environment.
He said of equal importance were the impacts of unhealthy food on human and planetary health such as hunger and dietary-related non-communicable diseases
(NCDs), obesity, hypertension, stroke, ischemic heart disease, and diabetes.
He explained that diet related NCDs were the cardinal health problems Ghana was faced with amidst food insecurity and micronutrient malnutrition.
Prof Laar said according to research, over one-third of all adult deaths, most of which were premature, were attributable to diet-related NCDs.
That, if untamed, he said, would be the leading cause of death in Ghana by 2030.
However, he acknowledged the efforts of the existing regulatory framework to encourage the consumption of healthy food, saying more needed to be done through monitoring of products.
Emerita Professor Isabella, Akyinbah Quakyi, Vice President of Science Section Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences and the chairperson for the lecture, commended Prof Laar for the insightful research indicating that food and public health were inseparable.
The public lecture was attended by stakeholders in the food and beverage industry, academics, students, and policymakers, especially regulators.
Source: Ghana News Agency