Template:Nutrition

Nutrition as a Sustainable Goal

License: CC-BY 2.0

Topic Editor: Andy Jorgensen

License: CC-BY 2.0

Food is a common topic of discussion in relation to sustainability. From a health perspective, food is essential for the maintenance of life for any human being. Without the adequate consumption of nutrients and calories, our bodies would not function properly, or even cease functionality completely. It is needless to say that food is the fuel for the human body, just as gasoline is the fuel for a motor vehicle. Accompanying food is the constant battle for the proper nutritional state of our world’s population. Therefore, if we are working towards achieving sustainable goals, we must consider adequate global nutrition as a goal. The reasoning is simple: a sustainable world is a healthy world.

            Needless to say, we want to end world hunger and ensure proper access to food. However, it is important to consider taking this goal a step further in order to improve the nutritional status of not only the impoverished and starving parts of the world, but also the parts that have plenty of food. Ensuring access to healthy food, fresh produce, and nutritious meals can provide a whole realm of benefits for the population. Since diet and weight are linked to health status, healthier nutritional status correlates with reduced prevalence of many chronic diseases. For example, The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (2015) reports that about half of all American adults have one or more preventable chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, some cancers, and poor bone health. Reduced prevalence of diseases means longer life spans and reduced healthcare costs, which can lead to a more sustainable population.

            Malnutrition, in a global perspective, is caused by a wide variety of factors, such as socioeconomic standing, education, genetic predisposition, and lifestyle habits. Consider nutritional status as a spectrum, with fatal starvation on one end and extreme obesity on the other. Within this spectrum is inadequate access to fresh produce, such as fruits and vegetables, which are necessary to consume in order to receive the necessary vitamins and minerals (without supplementation). Nutrient-dense foods, such as fresh produce, can provide benefit to both ends of this spectrum by providing the essential nutrients that both starving and obese individuals may not be receiving. Starving individuals are clearly nutrient-deficient; however, obese individuals are nutrient-deficient due to the over-consumption of processed, energy-dense food that provides little to no nutritional benefit.

            Hunger and starvation are an alarming epidemic that has reached many different parts of the world. The United Nations (n.d.) reports that one in nine people in the world, which is around 795 people, are undernourished. Additionally, the United Nations reports that poor nutrition causes nearly half, or 45 percent, of deaths in children under five, which amounts to 3.1 million yearly. Stunted growth, a major consequence of being malnourished, affects one in four children worldwide, with this number rising to one in three children from developing countries. Undernourishment and chronic nutrient deficiency can cause a wide array of ailments in humans, such as blindness, rickets, osteomalacia, and developmental disabilities. You will see a much higher prevalence of these malnourished individuals in Asia, which holds about two thirds of the world’s hungry population, according to the United Nations (n.d.).

            Obesity is also reaching epidemic proportions across the world, but this nutritional state is accompanied by different health risks. Contrary to hunger, obesity is prevalent in the United States compared to Asia. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2016), more than one-third of U.S. adults have obesity, which quantifies to 36.5 percent. The obesity-related conditions, such as cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and certain types of cancer (such as colon cancer) are among the leading causes of preventable death. The monetary burden of obesity in the U.S., according to the CDC (2016), is an annual medical cost that amounts to $147 million in 2008 U.S. dollars. In regards to childhood obesity, about 12.7 million children and adolescents, or about 17 percent, are affected by this nutritional state (CDC, 2017). In addition, findings from the CDC (2017) conclude that obesity disproportionally affects children from low-income families. This troublesome prevalence of childhood obesity means that these children are adopting poor lifestyle habits at a young age, thus making them more likely to continue these habits into adulthood, becoming more prone to fatal chronic diseases.

            The epidemic proportions of malnourishment are not going unnoticed by professionals. Many governmental agencies, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the United Nations recognize that intervention must occur in order to reduce the prevalence of preventable deaths in our population. From a macroscopic level, the United Nations (n.d.) has developed sustainable goals to achieve in order to combat the spreading of undernourishment globally. UN’s second sustainability goal is to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture. In pertinence to this context, there are two targets that the UN is actively working toward achieving. First, by 2030, the target is to end hunger and ensure access by all people, in particular the poor and people in vulnerable situations, including infants, to safe, nutritious and sufficient food all year round. Second, by 2030, the target is to end all forms of malnutrition, including achieving, by 2025, the internationally agreed targets on stunting and wasting in children under 5 years of age, and address the nutritional needs of adolescent girls, pregnant and lactating women and older persons (United Nations, n.d.).

            Alongside the United Nations is the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, who is taking educational approaches to rectifying malnourishment. One approach that this agency is taking is to implement the interactive diet analysis tool, MyPlate. MyPlate allows consumers to record their food choices and exercise habits to develop plans to focus on healthy nourishment. Instead of taking a caloric approach, MyPlate takes consumer-inputted meal choices and generates comparisons to dietary reference intakes (DRIs) for consumption of protein, grains, vegetables, fruits, dairy, vitamins, minerals, and water. More importantly, it guides consumers to follow the 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans, according to the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (2015), provides five overarching guidelines that encourage healthy eating patterns, recognize that individuals will need to make shifts in their food and beverage choices to achieve a healthy pattern, and acknowledge that all segments of our society have a role to play in supporting healthy choices. These guidelines are to: follow a healthy eating pattern across a lifespan; focus on variety, nutrient density, and amount; limit calories from added sugars and saturated fats and reduce sodium intake; shift to healthier food and beverage choices; and support healthy eating patterns for all.

            With the combined efforts of these governmental agencies and our involvement, we can eradicate some, or even most, of the preventable diseases discussed in this article. In these efforts, we need to increase access to fresh produce and educate the populations on what proper nutrition entails. Following the Dietary Guidelines and emphasizing consumption of whole, fresh foods from a variety of the MyPlate food groups can provide more people with better nutritional status. While there are barriers to access to this solution, widespread malnutrition is a health crisis that cannot be ignored. Increasing access to food is a necessary goal to attain; increasing access to nutritious foods is a necessary step further that we need to strive to achieve.

References

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2016). Adult obesity facts. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2017). Childhood obesity facts. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/childhood.html

United Nations (n.d.). Hunger and food security: United nations sustainable development. Retrieved from http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/hunger/

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (2015). Dietary guidelines for americans. Retrieved from https://health.gov/dietaryguidelines/2015/guidelines/

Citation

Moyer, B. (2017). Nutrition as a sustainable goal. Retrieved from