Yesterday, World Obesity Day was celebrated, a date that the Minister of Health, María Luisa Carcedo, took advantage of to announce a group of measures to prevent obesity since childhood.
Among the measures to be taken: Limitation of advertising of less healthy foods aimed at children under 15 years old, the introduction of color labeling in food and beverages, or the introduction of nutritional quality criteria in the schools menu.
Obesity, a rising danger
According to data from the World Health Organization (WHO), global obesity has almost tripled between 1975 and 2016. While in 1975 there were less than 1% of children and adolescents (ages 5 to 19) with obesity, in 2016 was 124 million.
And the figures go up to 340 million if we include overweight to the balance. But also before the age of four: 41 million young children already had these problems.
Our country is among those with the worst figures of obesity and childhood overweight. The latest data from the WHO Childhood Obesity Monitoring Initiative in Europe (COSI) shows that countries in southern Europe have the highest rate of overweight in children. It concludes that:
In Spain, 40% of children are overweight and between 17% of girls and 19% of boys are obese.In addition, this worldwide organization explains that "Overweight and obesity are an abnormal or excessive accumulation of fat that can be harmful to health" Y "can be prevented".
Among other problems, childhood obesity is associated with an increased risk of obesity in adulthood, diabetes, cardiovascular and joint diseases, cancer and mental health problems.
Government proposals
As Vitónica explains, the Minister of Health, Luisa Carcedo, announced a series of measures to combat obesity during the delivery of the XI NAOS Awards (Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity Prevention). The idea is that they begin to be implemented within one year:
Reform of the PAOS code of advertising self-regulation, in order to limit the advertising of products with low nutritional profiles that influence behaviors and shopping preferences in children under 15 years.
Reduction of added sugars, salt and saturated fat by 10% in about 3,500 products. It will be done gradually, by 2020.
Front labeling, following the Nutri-Score model, known as "nutritional traffic light". Indicate with green, amber or red colors if the different nutrients contained in that food exceed or not the sanitary recommendations.
In VitónicaNutriscore: this is how the new food labeling system works- Development of Law 17/2011 on Food Security, to prevent the sale of unhealthy food and drinks in schools and institutes, as well as in hospitals, health centers and Health Administrations.
The minister justifies the importance of this measure because "The children of our country spend about a third of their time in the educational environment."
In addition, he has announced "a specific program of school vacations this summer to avoid the risk of children not accessing a healthy diet and physical exercise".
Other initiatives to end this scourge
Different organizations and groups have been requesting that measures be taken to control the weight among the little ones.
The Organization of Consumers and Users, for example, calls for a regulation of children's food advertising and different studies point to the negative influence of unhealthy food advertisements on children's health.
It is also requested to end the sale of pastries in schools (an initiative of Andalusia) and lower sugars in food by law, as is already being done in Holland.
In Babies and more Back to school without pastries or processed: they ask for the elimination of advertising that promotes childhood obesityFurther, the secret of success to maintain an adequate weight in childhood seems to be in the diet. According to the latest study on the topic of COSI, the best data were obtained by the children of northern Europe: only 5-9% of children in Denmark, Norway, Ireland or France or Ireland have weight problems.
In these countries it is where children consume less hamburgers, sausages, pizzas, industrial sauces or chips. They do it only once or three times a week or never, and it is also where more vegetables and fruits are consumed.
However, in Spain (Mediterranean diet country), only 9% eat vegetables daily and 29% eat fruit.
However, the results also indicate that the situation is improving in some Mediterranean countries, including ours, and that if the trend continues, we could reach the European average in 2025.
So the measures announced by the Ministry of Health, such as reducing food marketing to children, will have to be added others such as the promotion of physical activity, reformulation strategies to limit sugar or taxes on unhealthy foods . This, at least, is my mother's opinion.
Photos | iStock
