Unhealthy diets greater threat to health than tobacco; UN expert calls for global regulation

May 21th, 2014

This week the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter, confirmed the need for a global agreement to deal with unhealthy diets. According to De Schutter, despite the launch of the WHO’s Global Strategy on Diet Physical Activity and Health ten years ago, the international community does not pay enough attention to the growing obesity epidemic, which is “…now a greater threat to global health than tobacco”. Therefore De Schutter sees an urgent need to set-up a framework convention on adequate diets, which could include measures such as the taxation of unhealthy products, regulating food composition, and taking action against junk food advertising, amongst others. The full news item can be found here.