Food and health in Europe

Food and health
in Europe
Summary

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The World Health Organization was established in 1948 as a specialized
agency of the United Nations serving as the directing and coordinating
authority for international health matters and public health. One of WHO’s
constitutional functions is to provide objective and reliable information and
advice in the field of human health, a responsibility that it fulfils in part
through its publications programmes. Through its publications, the
Organization seeks to support national health strategies and address the
most pressing public health concerns.
The WHO Regional Office for Europe is one of six regional offices
throughout the world, each with its own programme geared to the particular
health problems of the countries it serves. The European Region embraces
some 870 million people living in an area stretching from Greenland in the
north and the Mediterranean in the south to the Pacific shores of the Russian
Federation. The European programme of WHO therefore concentrates both
on the problems associated with industrial and post-industrial society and
on those faced by the emerging democracies of central and eastern Europe
and the former USSR.
To ensure the widest possible availability of authoritative information
and guidance on health matters, WHO secures broad international
distribution of its publications and encourages their translation and
adaptation. By helping to promote and protect health and prevent and
control disease, WHO’s books contribute to achieving the Organization’s
principal objective – the attainment by all people of the highest possible
level of health.

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Food and health in Europe:
a new basis for action
Summary

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WHO Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Food and health in Europe : a new basis for action ; summary
1.Nutrition 2.Food supply 3.Food contamination – prevention and control
4.Nutritional requirements 5.Nutrition policy 6.Intersectoral cooperation
7.Sustainability 8.Europe
ISBN 92 890 1364 8
(NLM Classification: WA 695)
Text editing: Mary Stewart Burgher

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Food and health
in Europe:
a new basis
for action
Summary

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ISBN 92 890 1364 8
The Regional Office for Europe of the World Health Organization welcomes
requests for permission to reproduce or translate its publications, in part or
in full. Applications and enquiries should be addressed to the Publications
unit, WHO Regional Office for Europe, Scherfigsvej 8, DK-2100
Copenhagen Ø, Denmark, which will be glad to provide the latest information
on any changes made to the text, plans for new editions, and reprints and
translations already available.
©World Health Organization 2002
Publications of the World Health Organization enjoy copyright protection
in accordance with the provisions of Protocol 2 of the Universal Copyright
Convention. All rights reserved.
The designations employed and the presentation of the material in this
publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the
part of the Secretariat of the World Health Organization concerning the legal
status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning
the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. The names of countries or
areas used in this publication are those that obtained at the time the original
language edition of the book was prepared.
The mention of specific companies or of certain manufacturers’ products
does not imply that they are endorsed or recommended by the World Health
Organization in preference to others of a similar nature that are not mentioned.
Errors and omissions excepted, the names of proprietary products are
distinguished by initial capital letters.
The views expressed in this publication are those of the contributors and
do not necessarily represent the decisions or the stated policy of the World
Health Organization.
PRINTED IN DENMARK

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Contents
Abbreviations ............................................................................................ vi
Foreword ................................................................................................... vii
Introduction ............................................................................................ 1
WHO’s commitment to food security, food safety and nutrition ....... 1
1. The burden of disease and the importance of food ............................ 3
Nutrition’s effect on the burden of disease ......................................... 4
Increasing concern about food safety .................................................. 6
Food and nutrition insecurity ............................................................. 7
2. Policy coordination .............................................................................. 11
Multisectoral policies for nutrition and food security......................... 11
Multisectoral policies for food safety .................................................. 15
3. Policies for the 21st century ................................................................. 19
Sustainable and healthy food production ........................................... 19
Action to protect health ...................................................................... 20
WHO’s commitment ......................................................................... 22
4. The way forward ................................................................................. 23
5. References ............................................................................................ 25
v

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Abbreviations
BMI
body mass index
BSE
bovine spongiform encephalopathy
CCEE
countries of central and eastern Europe
CHD
coronary heart disease
CVD
cardiovascular diseases
DALYs
disability-adjusted life-years
EFSA
European Food Safety Authority
FAO
Food and Agriculture Organization
of the United Nations
GEMS/Food
WHO Global Environment Monitoring System –
Food Contamination Monitoring and
Assessment Programme
HDL cholesterol
high-density lipoprotein cholesterol
LDL cholesterol
low-density lipoprotein cholesterol
NIS
newly independent states
vCJD
variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
vi

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Foreword
The WHO Regional Office for Europe encourages and supports countries
in developing and implementing their food and nutrition action
plans. Two major publications provide an important part of this support. Each
covers the same information, but tailors it to meet the needs of very different
audiences.
The first is a large forthcoming book that provides in-depth analysis of nutritional
health, foodborne disease, and concerns about the supply and security of food in
Europe. Written and reviewed by great numbers of experts from all over the European
Region, the book provides the scientific evidence for national action plans and
WHO’s First Food and Nutrition Action Plan for the European Region. It provides
information for the use of health professionals, in order to strengthen their capacity
to improve public health. The second publication is this booklet, a brief summary of
the much larger book that is aimed primarily at policy-makers.
This summary follows the structure of the book, but addresses the key actions
that need to be implemented by decision- and policy-makers. Like the larger book,
it presents the contribution of food and nutrition to the burden of ill health, threats
to the quality and safety of food and the problems of ensuring optimum supplies of
high-quality, nutritious food to all Europeans. Having summarized the evidence
and shown the need for action, it focuses on the options for policy, describing the
steps for decision-makers to take.
The challenge for policy-makers is that policies in many sectors – ranging from
agriculture, food processing, manufacturing and retailing, to catering and
advertising – shape the availability, accessibility and eventual consumption of
food. This is why policies need to be coordinated so that public health is given due
priority in the making of food policies by non-health sectors. Changes in eating
patterns that harm public health are not inevitable, but policy-makers need
information and data so that they can make informed decisions to prevent harm.
Nationally collected data can be compared with international norms and standards
to ensure that public health is at the centre of policy decisions. Issues such as ensuring
Europe has a sustainable and healthy food supply, reducing levels of obesity and
physical inactivity and protecting against foodborne diseases require urgent attention
over the next few years. One of the most important steps is the coordination of
policy-making to ensure that the food policies of all sectors give the proper priority to
public health.
vii

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viii
Food and health in Europe
Both the larger book and this summary highlight the urgent need for integrated,
multisectoral food and nutrition policies to encourage the sustainable production of
food, its safety and the provision of food of high nutritional quality for all.
Marc Danzon
WHO Regional Director for Europe

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