UN Health Group Wants Fat, Salt, Sugar To Be Regulated
By Mike Wendling
CNSNews.com London Bureau Chief
October 31, 2002
London (CNSNews.com) - Governments should consider regulating the amount of salt, sugar and fat in foods through legislation or voluntary agreements in order to reduce the health risks of obesity, the World Health Organization said.
The recommendation came in the World Health Report 2002, the annual report of the U.N.'s health agency. For the first time this year, the report attempts to quantify and rank worldwide risks to health and suggests ways to curb disease.
"This report provides a road map for how societies can tackle a wide range of preventable conditions that are killing millions of people prematurely," said WHO Director General Gro Harlem Brundtland.
The WHO "urges countries to adopt policies and programs to promote population-wide interventions like reducing salt in processed foods, cutting dietary fat, encouraging exercise and higher consumption of fruits and vegetables and lowering smoking."
"These are the most cost-effective interventions identified to reduce cardiovascular disease," the report said.
Different countries, different risks
Despite the WHO's recommendations in the area of obesity, the report found that the world's biggest health risk is "childhood and maternal underweight" - in other words, lack of food - followed by unsafe sex, high blood pressure, tobacco and alcohol.
Behind the overall statistics were large differences in the types of health risks facing people in rich and poor nations.
In the poorest countries in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, malnutrition is the leading cause of early death, followed by unsafe sex, inadequate sanitation and pollution from the indoor burning of fuel for cooking and heating.
In the world's richest nations, however, tobacco was at the top of the list, followed by high blood pressure, alcohol, cholesterol, and obesity.
A WHO spokesman said Thursday that suggestions regarding food policy were meant to start discussion in U.N. member states and potentially lead to voluntary agreements between governments and the food industry.
"We are encouraging governments to consider options in this area, we're not telling them to do these things," the report's managing editor Thomson Prentice said by phone from WHO headquarters in Geneva.
Prentice drew a parallel between action against tobacco and potential strategies against unhealthy foods.
"They're not exactly the same thing, however, there is good scientific evidence that increased salt in processed foods has an effect on the incidence of high blood pressure," he said. "There's strong scientific evidence that suggests that moderation of salt, fat and sugar content is advisable to reduce health risks."
The report points out that high cigarette taxes have cut consumption in several countries and advocates similar measures in countries with lower tobacco taxes.
"A seven-dollar pack of cigarettes will go a long way toward persuading smokers to quit and non-smokers not to start," said Christopher Murray, executive director of the WHO's information policy unit.
Differing views
A critique of the report by two Cambridge University health experts was published alongside a summary of the WHO report in the online version of the British medical journal The Lancet.
Dr. John Powles and Nicholas Day of Cambridge's Institute of Public Health warned against reading too much into the rankings. They noted that while diseases such as high blood pressure are well understood, the effects of diet and exercise are less well known.
"Public health surveillance on this scale is a new and immature, science," the scientists wrote.
The WHO was criticized by the Center for Consumer Freedom, a Washington-based food industry group. Communications director Mike Burita said the report was "typical of WHO research in the past."
"This is one more step in the hysteria over the obesity epidemic," Burita said. "Now the WHO wants to get government involved and tell people what they can and can't put into their bodies."
He also took issue with Prentice's comparison of food and tobacco, pointing out that while cigarettes are addictive and contain proven harmful chemicals, food does not meet those conditions.
"Every one of these reports is more fuel for groups who like to tell us we're too dumb to know what food we should be eating," Burita said. "People are starting to get fed up with it."
Longer life expectancy
The WHO report found that a relatively small number of health risks cause a large number of premature deaths, especially in poorer countries.
In the world's poorest nations, at least 30 percent of diseases are caused by malnutrition, unsafe sanitation, indoor smoke caused by the burning of solid fuels and HIV/AIDS.
"Forty percent of global deaths are due to just the 10 biggest risk factors, while the next 10 risk factors add less than 10 percent," said Alan Lopez, a co-director of the report.
The WHO estimates that worldwide life expectancy could be extended by five to 10 years if the major risks were eliminated.
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