Food and Nutrition Policy s1

Food and nutrition policy 1

Food and Nutrition Policy

Introduction

Assume people lived and practiced improved livelihood practices, exercising precautionary medicine against illness? Would life be longer and happier and would the spending on hospital bills and medicine reduce? Without shadow of a doubt it would thus public health which is the art of deterring disease, prolonging and enhancing health through organized hard work of knowledgeable societal organizations come in to introduce policies on healthy life practices (Harvey & Passmore, 1994). This has enabled emphasis to be put in education institutions, in hospitals and in general public on good health practices and has proved to be effective in preventing diseases such as diabetes and obesity among other diseases. Most emphasizes have been put on the food policy that entails the distribution, manufacture and use of foods. These policies are standard internationally and even at local level settings and involve the marketing and accessing of food for consumption. Food policies were set up with the rising concern for prevalence of marasmus and kwashiorkor in developing countries and obesity in developed countries (Caraher, Coveney & Lang, 2005). These policies that are in most cases introduced by the government ensure proper storage, sanitation and regulate on the contents of both packaged and raw foods. With the need to prevent these diseases and implement these laws food politics that entail the power over inspection and circulation of food affecting medical, cultural and environmental disputes concerning retailing and farming techniques and policies have resulted. Issues about food security and the technology for both production of food at the farm or in the companies have been regulated. It is thus with these concerns that I propose and advertise for enactment and enforcement of food and nutrition policies to change the approach of thinking about effects of food, its sustainability, the trends of our eating habits and the safety of the consumed foods especially genetically modified foods to better our communities.

Evaluation of food and nutrition policies

According to Caraher, Coveney & Lang (2005) food is a major determinant of our health. This is however dependent on the kind of foods we consume and the technology which was used to manufacture that food before consumption. Food policies are currently in place but there is a slow trend of their implementation thus not significantly effective. It is with this concern that approaches such as biomedical health, nutrition dietetics and food choices have been consulted. Ignoring these policies has been the causative for nutritive deficiency diseases or even diseases as a result of excessive consumption of certain foods. Advocacy for the enactment of food policies to increase food security, proper food consumption and governance by the respective bodies is on the rise. Food policies especially in Australia come in to being in 1991 under the organization as the National Food Authority that adopted new regulations on food policy which were gazette and certified. Later in 1994 it adopted rules that had been formulated by the World Health Organization on sanitation and tariff barriers on both the export and import of food. Currently it has made similar policies to be adopted in other countries with the objective to identify issues concerning food regulation and formulate effective strategies to ratify these policies as according to an essay on the food standards in Australia New Zealand (2010).

According to WHO access to healthy and safe food is a human right that is fundamental as stated in an article of its first action plan for food and nutrition policy (1998). It states that food policies are important since they prevent food related illness and contribute to a development economically and at the same time sustaining the environment. According to this article these policies were officiated by the International Conference on Nutrition in 1992, this was due to the frequent occurrences of food borne illness and the emergence of new pathogens that were believed to poison food such as Clostridium botulinum causing deaths. Practices such as poor breast feeding and wrong timing of weaning resulting to deficiency diseases and disorder such as obesity causing cardiovascular diseases were also on the rise thus policies had to be introduced to ensure food safety, optimal health and sustainable food security world wide (Cullen, Watson and Zakari, 2008).

Barriers to the implementation of food and nutrition policies

The implementation of these food policies has faced a lot of challenges in their implementation. The food prices globally have increased and due to this food security and reduction of poverty has been a major challenge. This has forced people to indulge in eating habits which they can afford irrespective of whether it is healthy or not. Starvation is also a common experience by most people leading to people feeding on low quality diets since they have grown desperate. Most policies are expensive and quite hard to maintain if a society is poor and lacks funding thus many people are denied access to the right food or even to no food at all. The problem of lack of a national nutrition policy concerning this issue has dragged behind the implementation of these policies particularly in the US as according to Palmer and Sushma (1992). This has caused reluctance to implement these policies since they are no rules stipulating the consequences of non observance. Another major problem is the literacy level concerning the need to implement these policies. These policies go without knowledge since they are few people who have specialized in this field, further with many people being illiterate then these policies will not make sense thus will not be practiced. The governments in most countries have not incorporated education about these policies in the education institutions curricula thus many are not aware of their existence. According to Oritiz, Dardet, Ruiz and Gascon (2003) the major barriers to food and nutrition policy implementation are the poor correlation of social economic policies and other national nutrition and food policies thus causing inconsistencies in the food prices and practices of agriculture, lack of coordinated administrators in concerned organizations, corruption, lack of equity in the distribution of national resources and also the poor commitment of the concerned leaders thus dragging behind policies of implementation. According to Alexander, O’Gorman and Wood (2010) the lack of the public health administration to take its responsibility in the inspecting of food and its labeling during manufacturing has resulted have resulted to consumption of low quality foods.

The challenge of poor accessibility of food due to impassable roads and poor security is being experienced in many developing countries due to the poor infrastructure and joblessness thus causing many people not to reach food. This to a great extent has deterred the proper eating policies of food being enacted resulting to starvation and indulgence in poor eating habits. The government imposition of tariff barriers has caused decreased accessibility of foods, it has also caused the entry of low quality food such as cereals containing afflatoxin and expired food due to lack of commitment and transparency (Stakeholder Convergence on Nutrition Policy, 2007).

Solutions to problems of implementation of food and nutrition policies

As this problem of lack or poor implementation of food and nutrition policy is currently intensifying policies laws to mitigate these weaknesses are being taken in to consideration with the help of non governmental organization such as the UN and also through improved individual government policies. The issue of availability of food as a basic need and fundamental human right is being emphasized with the government taking initiative to ensure everyone has access to enough amounts of food. This has caused a reduction in malnutrition with relief aid being provided to drought stricken areas. Taking measures to ensure that there is enough stock to prevent the lack of food has been undertaken ensuring prior planning for food stocks before exporting as stated by Andreasson et al (2006). According to Comparative analysis of food and nutrition policies in WHO European member state article (2003) the introduction of a coordinated administration of development policies with that of nutrition health has seen improvement of these policies. This has been through funding of campaigns to ensure good health practices such as mothers’ breastfeeding children fully for the first six months and also the allocation of enough money for food in the budget which has helped subsidize food prices. This has increased both the affordability and accessibility of food to the poor. According to Houghton, Neck and Cooper (2009) the contemporary society is also embracing the incorporation of health and nutrition policies in schools with several higher institutions introducing related courses.

People who are well educated are also improving their eating habits and lifestyles by incorporating exercise and ensuring they eat food that is standardized and has the right kind and amount of balanced diet. The introduction of millennium development goals entailing the enhancement of transparency and good administration has also helped to reduce impunity in countries ensuring good planning and communal achievements in good food and nutritional practices as Babu et al (2004) stated. Inspection of foods for any harmful products especially in genetically modified foods is currently underway to ensure bio-safety in any bioscience activity done. This is known to reduce poisoning of foods from pesticides and fertilizers applied during their growing as according to Wright et al (2009) and also sustain the environment. According to Coveney (2003) these policies once implemented will go along way to curb diseases and increase the life expectancy of people since it emphasizes on not living to eat but eating so as to live. With these concepts people will safeguard their health by ensuring they eat the right kind of foods for the right purpose and from the right companies. This according to Coveney (2003) will only happen if the stipulated policies in the inspection, growing, accessing and eating of foods are observed stringently.

Conclusion

Food and nutrition policy have long existed since 1992 though they have not been fully implemented and this has resulted to increased deaths from communicable diseases due to poor sanitation, nutritive disorders due to deficiency or an excessive of a kind of food. This has thus called for elites to raise alarms on the poor trends of eating calling for introduction and enacting of policies concerning food and nutrition. Though this has been achieved it has been met with the challenges of illiteracy, poor governance and lack of national policies. Also the issues of poor infrastructure, tariff barriers and lack of incorporation in education curriculum have been experienced. Government policies and other groups such as NGOs have come in to mitigate these problems by giving aid and putting pressure on government to enhance infrastructure development and enhance transparency ensuring foods are eaten for the right purpose at the right quantity and for the right reasons. If this is made the continuum in our nations it will improve living conditions a great deal and promote good health in our societies.

References

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