March 28, New Delhi: The three-day international conference on ‘Critical Public Health Consequences of the Double Burden of Malnutrition and the Changing Food Environment in South and South East Asia’ to be held at India International Centre, New Delhi, between March 28 to 30.Over 250 participants, including policy makers, activists, practitioners, members of academia and researchers from 13 countries, will share a common platform to raise and debate important issues that underlie these high levels of malnutrition. Participants will include policy makers, activists, academics and researchers, who have a significant role in shaping the food and nutrition policy landscape in South and South East Asia. The conference is also expected to enhance collaboration among professionals engaged in various sectors such as communicable and non-communicable diseases, nutrition, water and sanitation, dietetics, food sciences, agriculture, economics, environment, etc.
Undernutrition, as well as overnutrition, can be devastating to a nation’s overall health and productivity. Both the menaces are responsible for a high degree of morbidity and mortality from communicable diseases such as TB, malaria, pneumonia and diarrhoea associated with under-nutrition; and non-communicable diseases (NCDs) like diabetes, hypertension, cardiac disease and strokes, associated with obesity. In fact, the South East Asia region has the highest rate of mortality from NCDs among all WHO regions (62% of all mortality, affecting 8.5 million people) and the second highest (after the African region) for communicable diseases.
While countries in South and South East Asia have some of the highest levels of undernutrition, the region is also seeing a swift transition to a new situation termed as ‘double burden of malnutrition’ — whereby gains related to reduction in under-nutrition, are being undermined by an increase in overweight and obesity. This and several other issues related to nutrition will be discussed by eminent speakers and government officials from a host of countries including India, Brazil, Australia, UK, US, Thailand, Bangladesh, Italy, South Africa, Malaysia, Nepal, Mexico and Switzerland through workshops, plenary sessions, panel discussions, poster presentations and meetings.Seventy-two eminent people are attending the conference as experts. The keynote speakers include Prof. Carlos Monteiro, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil,Ms. Fiorella Espinosa, El Poder del Consumidor, Mexico andDr. P Sainath, People’s Archive of Rural India, India, who are the keynote speakers. Dr. Vandana Prasad (National Convenor, Public Health Resource Network) is the Conference Convenor.
The conference aims to connect evidence regarding the prevalence of both under nutrition and ‘over-nutrition’, as well as the associations between nutrition and disease, policy and programme responses. It will look at catalysing civil society action to support community-based efforts to reshape the food and nutrition policy landscape. Through the meet, global and regional policy makers, academics, researchers, nutrition advocates and activists will gather on a common platform to support development and implementation of policies and programmes that promote better public health, nutrition and the control of communicable and non-communicable diseases.The conference is also expected to enhance collaboration among professionals engaged in various sectors such as communicable and non-communicable diseases, nutrition, water and sanitation, dietetics, food sciences, agriculture, economics, environment, etc.
Said Dr. Vandana Prasad,National Convener, Public Health Resource Network,“We are in the throes of a pervasive food insecurity and undernutrition, and also at the brink of an obesity epidemic. Both have dire consequences upon health and need to be tackled head-on with urgency.”
