Tackling malnutrition: Improving both food and health systems

Experts from Southeast Asia, Kenya, and the United States discussed the impact of COVID-19 on food security and nutrition, and highlighted the connection between the food and health systems, during an event moderated by Devex Senior Reporter Teresa Welsh on May 12, in partnership with 1,000 Days.

Roger Mathisen, Southeast Asia regional director at Alive & Thrive, discussed how COVID-19 has had a variable impact in the region, as well as the impact of extreme weather events, and how that led to broken food supply chains in some countries.

Ruth Oniang’o, nutritionist, professor, and former member of Parliament, described how rural communities in Kenya, many of whom are daily wage laborers, have been severely impacted and are struggling to get enough food. She mentioned the even greater burden on women to provide healthy food and take care of their families and communities, echoing Meera Shekar, global lead of health, nutrition, and population at the World Bank.

Shekar also observed how food prices had initially spiked, and Heather Danton, project director, at USAID Advancing Nutrition led by JSI Research & Training Institute, Inc., noted that inflation, affecting both the cost of food and prices in general, also rose.

Maternal and child nutrition was also discussed, with concerns about the millions of children who are predicted to be stunted and/or wasted by 2022, given the impact of COVID-19.

While food security issues may have been more pronounced in rural areas in low- and middle-income countries, a massive increase in consumption of packaged and processed foods may lead to a rise in obesity rates and cause diseases such as diabetes, Shekar said. Statistics show that obese people have a 48% greater chance of dying due to COVID-19.

Mathison also mentioned a recent study from Indonesia that found that children under 5 in urban areas were eating less nutritious food due to higher consumption of packaged food, and said that families may be influenced by “inappropriate” marketing and advertising of breastmilk substitutes, and future mothers are then less likely to breastfeed their babies.

When it came to solutions, the participants raised a number of ways to try and manage the challenges. Danton called for analyzing the points of intersection between health and food systems, at specific locations even within countries, given each system is different. Oniang’o said more research and uptake of traditional foods could help, and investment in agriculture.

Governments should also be tasked with improving social protection and health systems. “[W]hile nutrition is included in SDG 2.2, many of the solutions to the nutrition agenda … are encompassed in SDG 3.8, which is UHC, universal health coverage,” Shekar said. But many countries are unsure how to pay for nutrition under UHC and given governments and official development assistance are constrained, then innovative financing and bringing in the private sector is needed, she added.

Although Danton agreed that the private sector needs to be involved, she questioned how to make food production viable given the private sector’s goal to be profitable: “We're going to have to somehow identify best practices for this challenge between profit and environmental sustainability,” she said.

Visit the Future of Food Systems series for more coverage on food and nutrition — and importantly, how we can make food fair and healthy for all. You can join the conversation using the hashtag #FoodSystems.