• News
    • Latest news
    • News search
    • Health
    • Finance
    • Food
    • Career news
    • Content series
    • Try Devex Pro
  • Jobs
    • Job search
    • Post a job
    • Employer search
    • CV Writing
    • Upcoming career events
    • Try Career Account
  • Funding
    • Funding search
    • Funding news
  • Talent
    • Candidate search
    • Devex Talent Solutions
  • Events
    • Upcoming and past events
    • Partner on an event
  • Post a job
  • About
      • About us
      • Membership
      • Newsletters
      • Advertising partnerships
      • Devex Talent Solutions
      • Contact us
Join DevexSign in
Join DevexSign in

News

  • Latest news
  • News search
  • Health
  • Finance
  • Food
  • Career news
  • Content series
  • Try Devex Pro

Jobs

  • Job search
  • Post a job
  • Employer search
  • CV Writing
  • Upcoming career events
  • Try Career Account

Funding

  • Funding search
  • Funding news

Talent

  • Candidate search
  • Devex Talent Solutions

Events

  • Upcoming and past events
  • Partner on an event
Post a job

About

  • About us
  • Membership
  • Newsletters
  • Advertising partnerships
  • Devex Talent Solutions
  • Contact us
  • My Devex
  • Update my profile % complete
  • Account & privacy settings
  • My saved jobs
  • Manage newsletters
  • Support
  • Sign out
Latest newsNews searchHealthFinanceFoodCareer newsContent seriesTry Devex Pro
    • News
    • Food and nutrition

    Q&A: The greatest challenges for global nutrition and health

    Alessandro Demaio, CEO at the EAT Foundation, speaks to Devex about the health and nutrition challenges facing the world — and the hurdles consumerism creates.

    By Lisa Cornish // 22 August 2018
    Alessandro Demaio, CEO at the EAT Foundation. Photo by: Crawford Fund

    CANBERRA — At the Crawford Fund Annual Conference in Canberra on Aug. 14, Alessandro Demaio, CEO at the EAT Foundation, presented a keynote address highlighting the health and nutrition challenges facing the world — and the challenges consumerism creates.

    It is a topic he is passionate about; Demaio advocates for food system changes in both developed and developing countries.

    Demaio spoke with Devex on the sidelines of the conference, about his work, food system disruption, and what actions must be taken to improve health now.

    Here is the interview, edited for length and clarity.

    You have shown today a range of statistics on the obstacles facing global nutrition needs. How are governments stepping up to the challenge?

    A lot of governments are stepping up to the challenge — but we still see still a lack of leadership across the broad spectrum of the Sustainable Development Goals. It really is a menu for development, and has allowed countries to select and prioritize goals and also converge different goals.

    Great examples are Chile with their very progressive food labelling laws, Brazil with their dietary guidelines that integrate environmental, health, and cultural dimensions, and Mexico with a tax on sugary drinks — we’ve seen the government there step up and take action, despite fierce opposition from the private sector.

    Different jurisdictions — countries, states and cities — taking action and responsibility across important aspects of the food agenda.

    Devex is running a miniseries on how cities are tackling NCDs in the line up to the third United Nations high-level meeting on NCDs.

    ► Cities and NCDs: Montevideo's menu for reducing sodium intake

    ► Cities and NCDs: The growing threat of childhood obesity in Quito

    ► Cities and NCDs: Curbing excess salt consumption in Ouagadougou

    The emergence of city-based solutions is an exciting area. We’re not often seeing the level of leadership we would like at the national level, often because of this complex interplay between policymakers and the private sector, with the latter’s interest being at odds with public health priorities. Still, great leadership is emerging at the city level on issues of health and nutrition, and with more people living in cities by mid-century, this is an important avenue to solve some of the growing health issues we are facing.

    In your work with the EAT-Lancet Commission on Food, Planet, Health, you are aiming for mid-century targets for global health and nutrition challenges. How important is it to look beyond the 2030 goals of the SDG with health and nutrition?

    The reason we are looking at mid-century is because that is as far as we have good projections on population growth.2030 is just 12 years away, and to try and transform the global food system in this time does not seem feasible to most government.

    You need the extra time to transition economies, transition food systems, transition consumer demand, taste preferences, and those types of things.

    Having said that, if we don’t achieve the SDGs we will not achieve our targets. It’s why we purposely integrate everything we do into the concept of leaving no one behind. That is, achieving the SDGs by 2030 to ensure we achieve a healthy food system for a healthier population.

    You also discussed the gap between nutrition needs and what we produce. What are the factors creating this gap?

    To understand why we eat what we eat, that’s a reflection largely on the environment around us and the food that is available, accessible, affordable, and that we actually enjoy. A lot of the foods we eat these days are products, not raw foods — so you’re using a constellation of ingredients that are commonly delivered by major multinational food companies. The priority for them is often efficiency — using the cheaper ingredients, with an increase in fats, salt, and sugar.

    Those creep into our food systems not just because people like it, but because they are great ways of stabilizing foods and increasing shelf life.

    “We have created the perfect storm to drive the obesity epidemic.”

    — Alessandro Demaio, CEO at the EAT Foundation

    But then the question becomes why we grow what we grow, and in many parts of the world we subsidize sugar and corn for many different reasons — most of them historical.

    It is the cheap nature of these raw, commodity staple foods that drive much of what we produce upstream. If the cheapest product to produce is sugar or even high-fructose corn syrup and if we are able to produce meat very cheaply — because another cheap use of corn and soy is in livestock production — they come to market cheaply.

    We have created the perfect storm to drive the obesity epidemic.

    There are business benefits in creating new industries with healthy options — how can this be communicated?

    There is more of a focus on this issue through a consciousness of policymakers, in theory, of shifting food focus away from quantity and a small number of staples. But the reality of achieving that is difficult. There is both an inertia due to lobbying in the political sphere and the influence of advertising,

    There is a consciousness — the evidence is clear that we should be eating much more fruit and vegetables — but the incentives in the marketplace and food environment still push consumers in the other direction. To reverse that is very difficult. But not impossible.

    You have mentioned advertising. Social media provides an avenue for advertising that is less blatant to consumers and social media is growing in developing countries. How can you respond to these challenges in developing health and nutrition strategies?

    “The worrying thing is that the most profitable forms of food are the ones that are least healthy.”

    —

    This is a deep concern for me.

    The digitalization of our food systems, the fact that the place where we learn about or purchase, consume, interact, and waste food is increasingly on the small screen in our pocket. It accelerates and amplifies all the challenges, because suddenly you have a billboard in your pocket. You have advertising that is purposely and perfectly curated for a person’s tastes, preferences, income, geographic location, and friends.

    The worrying thing is that the most profitable forms of food are the ones that are least healthy. They have the largest advertising budgets; the largest advertising budget gives you the greatest reach; the greatest reach gives you the greatest influence.

    So social media, digital media, and having this system in your pocket combined with the likes of Uber Eats [a food delivery platform] and buying groceries online — this is the way we are moving, and the threat is that it has the potential to amplify this trajectory we are on.

    But it also has the opportunity to do the opposite

    At this conference the senior nutrition officer with the Food and Agriculture Organization, Jessica Fanzo, called for urgent disruption in this space — what disruptive ideas do you have?

    I co-host a TV show on the ABC [Australian Broadcasting Corporation], I have just launched a book, I have a few board positions in various places, and I donate all of the money from those sources to a small foundation in Melbourne [NCDFREE] to develop innovative ideas to solve these challenges.

    Communicating noncommunicable diseases

    The terms "noncommunicable diseases" or "NCDs" don't exactly lend themselves to snappy and exciting communications campaigns. But with renewed energy around this global health issue, that has to change. Devex speaks to experts in the field to find out how to communicate the noncommunicable.

    It is a small startup with an impact hub that is focused on developing disruptive policy for nutrition-related public health challenges. There is a great group of young people who run that platform.

    I don’t know what the answers are, but it is partly about these disruptive technologies and partially about having a realistic view of the economic model in which we work. Hoping x and y will step up is probably not going to happen in the timeline we need — so what are the other avenues to influence large corporations, for example, apart from policy — which I vehemently believe in but can’t wait for it to happen.

    We are working on the investor community — how can we use the investor community to disrupt larger multinationals to produce more sustainable food and healthy options? And how can we work with food retailers who, at the end of the day, have less of an interest in certain products but want to sell certain products at scale over time? If we can change what they are selling to healthier options, then we can spur reformulation in the market and get consumers to eat healthier options.

    The digitalization of our society should be an opportunity — how can we use social media, film, Facebook Live, Instagram, and these kinds of things to deliver health promotion?

    We are working in Melbourne with Uber Eats to use the 13,000 restaurants that are member of Uber Eats and the millions of meals that are served each year through that platform. We want to use their data to understand the food environment and where unhealthy food environments are.

    They can say to us, “these are the four or five suburbs that need healthier options.” And we can work with government and other partners to try and bring healthier options in, and then work back with Uber Eats or another food aggregator to make sure that those healthier options look good and are delivered in a way consumers are going to like.

    They know how to sell food to consumers and they have the platform and data. All we need to do is piece that together.

    For more coverage of NCDs, visit the Taking the Pulse series here.

    • Global Health
    • Private Sector
    • Innovation & ICT
    • Media And Communications
    • Trade & Policy
    • Research
    • Urban Development
    • Melbourne, Australia
    • Canberra, Australia
    Printing articles to share with others is a breach of our terms and conditions and copyright policy. Please use the sharing options on the left side of the article. Devex Pro members may share up to 10 articles per month using the Pro share tool ( ).

    About the author

    • Lisa Cornish

      Lisa Cornishlisa_cornish

      Lisa Cornish is a former Devex Senior Reporter based in Canberra, where she focuses on the Australian aid community. Lisa has worked with News Corp Australia as a data journalist and has been published throughout Australia in the Daily Telegraph in Melbourne, Herald Sun in Melbourne, Courier-Mail in Brisbane, and online through news.com.au. Lisa additionally consults with Australian government providing data analytics, reporting and visualization services.

    Search for articles

    Related Stories

    Global HealthObesity is on the rise in Africa. Here’s what UNICEF is doing about it

    Obesity is on the rise in Africa. Here’s what UNICEF is doing about it

    Decoding Food Systems: Sponsored by CGIARWhat can agrobiodiversity do for nutrition, economy, and climate?

    What can agrobiodiversity do for nutrition, economy, and climate?

    Food systemsNutrition issues to watch at the 78th World Health Assembly

    Nutrition issues to watch at the 78th World Health Assembly

    Food SystemsHow ADB plans to invest $40B in food systems by 2030

    How ADB plans to invest $40B in food systems by 2030

    Most Read

    • 1
      Opinion: AI-powered technologies can transform access to health care
    • 2
      Exclusive: A first look at the Trump administration's UNGA priorities
    • 3
      WHO anticipates losing some 600 staff in Geneva
    • 4
      Opinion: Resilient Futures — a world where young people can thrive
    • 5
      AIIB turns 10: Is there trouble ahead for the China-backed bank?
    • News
    • Jobs
    • Funding
    • Talent
    • Events

    Devex is the media platform for the global development community.

    A social enterprise, we connect and inform over 1.3 million development, health, humanitarian, and sustainability professionals through news, business intelligence, and funding & career opportunities so you can do more good for more people. We invite you to join us.

    • About us
    • Membership
    • Newsletters
    • Advertising partnerships
    • Devex Talent Solutions
    • Post a job
    • Careers at Devex
    • Contact us
    © Copyright 2000 - 2025 Devex|User Agreement|Privacy Statement