Health

KEY POINTS

Measures to tackle Obesity

·         While tackling under nutrition through assurance of adequate nutrition (usually interpreted as dietary calories), we need to ensure that it is also about appropriate nutrition (the right balance of nutrients).

·         Our policy response has to move from “food security” to “nutrition security”.

·         Policy responses should include agricultural systems that promote crop diversity (to enable dietary diversity) as well as regulatory and fiscal measures (to decrease the availability, affordability and promotion of unhealthy foods, while making healthy foods more accessible).

·         For example, taking the lead from a directive by the Delhi High Court, India should ban the sale of junk food in and around schools.

·         Legislators should also put into practice the results of a recent Lancet study on India.

·         It showed that higher taxes on junk food can actually lead those on lower incomes to live healthier lives.

·         Even in clinical settings, counselling and care are needed.

·         Instead of being downgraded as ways of managing “poor lifestyle choices”, obesity management, prevention and treatment should be provided as essential health services targeted at a condition that undermines health in many ways.

·         This would help reverse the stigma attached to obesity even by health professionals (which has also undermined the response to it).

·         Further, India should link obesity and undernutrition and treat them as twinned challenges to be jointly addressed under the universal health coverage umbrella.

·         By tackling obesity through prevention and early care, financially debilitating NCDs can be avoided.

Way Ahead

·         Tackling obesity benefits the economy and the environment, as healthy and sustainable diets are good for productivity levels and the planet.

·         It is now time to get ahead of this unfolding health crisis and save lives and money in the process.