ISLAMABAD: The speakers at the seminar on the National Healthy Diet Policy demanded the government ensure holistic consultations with all stakeholders including the youth and women to ensure a robust policy document intended to curb growing child diseases.
The Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) and Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) organised the seminar titled ‘From Concept to Action: Food Pathways Through Healthy Diet Policy’ at the SDPI Conference Hall.
In her presentation on the title theme by Khansa Naeem, Associate Researcher SDPI informed the participants that 37.6% of children under five years of age were stunted while 7.1% of children under the age of five were wasted whereas obesity was recorded among 7.5% of women and men in the country. She added that diet is an important component of health that has less focus on the masses and stakeholders.
In his remarks, Dr Shahzad Ali Khan, Vice Chancellor and Dean of Health Services Academy said unhealthy diet has emerged as a uni
versal phenomenon in Pakistan, whereas there is no convincing model to persuade the poor population to quit unhealthy diets. He added that bad eating habits and lifestyle has created universalization of poor and unhealthy diets across the country.
He said Pakistan has a law on breastfeeding for mothers to administer their milk to babies for two years and banned advertisements of mother’s formula milk.
‘According to a survey, 72% of women are feeding formula milk and 90% of those respondents claimed that their doctors had prescribed them which is illegal as per the law. SDPI should take the lead to incorporate a right-based approach component in the policy on breastfeeding,’ Dr Shahzad Khan said.
He informed that there was an 11% more risk of contracting diarrhoea among children who were not fed their mother’s milk. It should be declared as the fundamental right of the baby to get human milk through breastfeeding, he added.
‘Healthy diet concept needs to be addressed from mother’s feed as it will help redu
ce disease risk among children,’ he added.
He added that 72% health of an individual is determined by diet and nutrition intake. ‘Healthy diet policy is an important consideration because, without a healthy diet, no health is possible.’
Pakistan, he said is currently having a double burden of infectious and non-communicable diseases (NCDs). He mentioned that the problem of unhealthy diets was highly prevalent in upper-income groups along with lower income groups.
He urged the stakeholders to ensure effective advocacy and communication campaigns to manage bad advertisements promoting unhealthy diets.
Director Nutrition, Ministry of National Health, Services, Regulations and Coordination, Dr Mehreen Mujtaba said 67% of our population did not have access to a healthy diet, whereas the data of the national nutrition survey was old and repeatedly quoted at different forums. ‘17.7% of children in Paksitan are wasted and the World Health Organisation has declared it an emergency. Pakistan required strong politic
al leadership to champion the goal of healthy diet,’ she said.
She added that the Ministry of Health along with partners intends to support policy making process on healthy diet through inclusive feedback from the provinces.
She also underscored the need for multisectoral stakeholders’ engagement involving academia, youth and private sector as part of the policy making process.
Dr Mehreen suggested to develop locally contextualised healthy recipe books to promote healthy food depending on the provinces with their local translations.
Faiz Rasool from GAIN said Pakistan is a country facing serious malnutrition issues that demanded the country to declare a malnutrition emergency but our policy landscape analysis revealed no such guiding document on the ground.
‘Our NCDs are increasing at a very high pace but no guidance is available to address the issue whereas dietary diversity and healthy diet needs to be added in our curriculum,’ he added.
Faiz Rasool noted that youth and women were not included in the
policy making process, whereas 64% of the country’s population was young but had no contribution in the policy areas.
‘UN Foods System Summit urged not only Pakistan but all member states to focus on food to address health issues and diseases. Healthy diet is considered expensive but it is cheaper and accessible whereas lack of information is hampering masses access to it,’ he added.
The National Healthy Diet Policy would have to address data issues, inclusiveness and robustness with feedback of all stakeholders making it a guiding document for all,’ he said.
Deputy Executive Director, SDPI, Qasim Ali Shah in his vote of thanks said that the country over the years has evolved its discourse on food security and nutrition, whereas the National Healthy Diet Policy will help us identify our goals to be achieved in the future, he added.