Tax high salt, high sugar, high fat products: WHO Chief Scientist

'We always think that undernutrition and deficiencies are problems of low-income countries and overweight and obesity are the problems of the high-income countries, but the new reality is these two coexist in LMIC countries, communities and also in households globally,” said Dr Soumya Swaminathan, Chief Scientist, World Health Organisation.

Chennai: To encourage people towards a healthier diet, the Government should consider taxing high-fat high sugar, and high salt products said Dr Soumya Swaminathan, Chief Scientist, World Health Organisation (WHO).

Delivering the first Dr C Gopalan Memorial Lecture at the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) on Friday, she said, “The co-existence of overweight and obesity along with stunting is the new nutrition reality that we need to address urgently.”

Dr Soumya Swaminathan, Chief Scientist, World Health Organisation

“We always think that undernutrition and deficiencies are problems of low-income countries and overweight and obesity are the problems of the high-income countries, but the new reality is these two coexist in low and middle incomecountries, communities and also in households globally,” she added.

Pointing out to data on malnutrition, she said about 2.3 billion adults and children are overweight globally, with about 150 million stunted children. The burden of overweight and obesity is growing very rapidly and the rate of undernutrition is coming down. She warned that this would have long-term consequences and could affect future generations.

Taxing unhealthy food or making nutrition information labelling mandatory, could help in solving this problem, she said.

Listing a set of eight policy recommendations for India, Dr Soumya called for strengthening data systems, nutrition surveillance and surveys, decentralized planning and policies, focus on local consumption of diverse diets, cultivation of biofortified plants, besides nutrition awareness.

Dr C Gopalan, who passed away last year, is known as ‘Father of Nutrition Research in India’ and was former Director-General Indian Council of Medical Research as well as Director of the National Institute of Nutrition.