On 17 November, the WFP Centre of Excellence against Hunger Brazil participated in the 18th Congress of the Latin American Confederation of Nutritionists and Dietitians (Confelanyd), an international event that brought together nutritionists from 14 countries, among them Brazil, Colombia and Peru, which are the cooperating countries in the Nurture the Future project. The Centre of Excellence, the Ministry of Health and the Brazilian Cooperation Agency, partners in the project, promoted the seminar “Perspectives and Challenges of Food and Nutrition Policies against Obesity”, which marked the launch of the publication “Childhood Obesity: Actions of Prevention and Care in Brazil, Colombia and Peru”.
During the seminar, Daniel Balaban, Director of the WFP Centre of Excellence, emphasized that obesity among children and adolescents is the result of a complex series of environmental, genetic, individual and behavioural factors that act in multiple contexts. “For the prevention and care of obesity, it is essential to adopt intersectoral policies, public investment and measures that need everyone’s efforts to reverse environments that promote obesity. Thus, this policy brief brings good practices on how Brazil, Colombia and Peru have acted in the prevention and care of childhood obesity”, he said.
The seminar also featured a debate on national strategies and challenges for the implementation of actions to combat childhood obesity. The representatives of the Ministries of Health of Brazil, Gisele Bortolini, of Colombia, Elisa Cadena, and of Peru, Maria Reyes, spoke about strategies that could be adopted so that the food and nutrition agenda of the countries can prioritize the prevention and care of childhood obesity, as well as the main strategies that each country adopts to reduce childhood overweight and obesity rates. The exchange of knowledge promoted by the seminar aims to support processes to strengthen national public institutions and the nutrition and health sectors considered essential for the management of public policies on food and nutrition in partner countries.
The South-South Cooperation Project to Tackle the Multiple Burden of Malnutrition in Schoolchildren (Nurture the Future) is the result of a partnership between the Ministry of Health, the WFP Centre of Excellence against Hunger and the Brazilian Cooperation Agency. The initiative seeks synergies and complementarity with other Brazilian and international actions on the subject, as well as with activities developed by governments and WFP offices in Colombia and Peru. Learn more here.