Search Tips
sorted by
30 shown of 126 entities
The right to an adequate diet: the agriculture-food-health nexus 2012, para. 6
- Paragraph text
- The world is now paying a high price for having focused almost exclusively on increasing production over the past half-century. Undernutrition remains considerable, largely because agrifood systems have not contributed to the alleviation of rural poverty. One in seven people on a global level are still hungry. About 34 per cent of children in developing countries, 186 million children in total, have a low height for age, the most common symptom of chronic undernutrition. Although the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Food Price Index, adjusted for inflation, indicates that food costs declined from the early 1960s until 2002 (apart from a peak in 1973-1974), the poorest are still too poor to feed themselves in dignity because agriculture has not been designed to support the livelihoods of the most vulnerable and marginalized groups.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Food & Nutrition
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Year
- 2012
- Paragraph type
- Other
Paragraph
The right to an adequate diet: the agriculture-food-health nexus 2012, para. 8
- Paragraph text
- Like undernutrition, micronutrient deficiency or "hidden hunger" is a violation of a child's right to a standard of living adequate for the child's physical and mental development, and to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health, recognized under article 6, paragraph 2, and article 24, paragraph 2 (c), of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The environment, not genetics, explains differences in child development between regions. The WHO Child Growth Standards demonstrate that infants and children from geographically diverse regions of the world experience very similar growth patterns when their health and nutrition needs are met, so that all children have in principle the same development potential. States, therefore, have a duty to support exclusive breastfeeding for six months and continued breastfeeding, combined with adequate complementary foods, until the second birthday of the child; and to establish food systems that can ensure each individual's access not only to sufficient caloric intake, but also to sufficiently diverse diets, providing the full range of micronutrients required.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Food & Nutrition
- Health
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Infants
- Year
- 2012
- Paragraph type
- Other
Paragraph
The right to an adequate diet: the agriculture-food-health nexus 2012, para. 16
- Paragraph text
- First, it is troubling that the 1981 International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes and subsequent World Health Assembly (WHA) resolutions remain under-enforced, despite the wide recognition that exclusive breastfeeding for the six first months and continued breastfeeding, combined with safe and adequate complementary foods, up to 2 years old or beyond is the optimal way of feeding infants, and reduces the risk of obesity and NCDs later in life. Countries committed to scaling up nutrition should begin by regulating the marketing of commercial infant formula and other breast-milk substitutes, in accordance with WHA resolution 63.23, and by implementing the full set of WHO recommendations on the marketing of breast-milk substitutes and of foods and non-alcoholic beverages to children, in accordance with WHA resolution 63.14.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Food & Nutrition
- Health
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Infants
- Year
- 2012
- Paragraph type
- Other
Paragraph
The right to an adequate diet: the agriculture-food-health nexus 2012, para. 17
- Paragraph text
- Second, the focus on pregnant and lactating women and infants in some recent nutrition initiatives, while understandable, should not lessen the need to address the nutritional needs of others, including children, women who are not pregnant or lactating, adolescents and older persons. The right to adequate food, which includes adequate nutrition, is a universal right guaranteed to all. This pleads in favour of broad-based national strategies for the realization of the right to food that address the full range of factors causing malnutrition, rather than narrowly focused initiatives that address the specific needs of a child's development between conception and the second birthday.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Food & Nutrition
- Health
- Person(s) affected
- Adolescents
- Children
- Infants
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Paragraph type
- Other
Paragraph
The right to an adequate diet: the agriculture-food-health nexus 2012, para. 18
- Paragraph text
- Third, interventions aimed at improving nutrition and targeting pregnant or lactating women and children under 2 years old, while vital, do not substitute for addressing the structural causes of undernutrition or inadequate diets. The Special Rapporteur noted previously that chief among these structural causes are inequitable food systems that are not sufficiently inclusive of the poorest, small-scale farmers and that do not reduce rural poverty; and the priority given to monocropping of certain staples over more diverse farming systems that would help to ensure more adequate diets. The violations of women's rights, gender inequality and the lack of women's empowerment are another major factor explaining poor nutritional outcomes. Improving women's access to productive resources, allowing women to make decisions regarding the household budget and protecting women from pressure, including economic pressure, to renounce optimal breastfeeding practices would contribute significantly to positive nutritional outcomes.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Food & Nutrition
- Health
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Paragraph type
- Other
Paragraph
The right to an adequate diet: the agriculture-food-health nexus 2012, para. 35
- Paragraph text
- The impacts of increasingly globalized food chains and the uniformization of diets across the globe have disparate impacts across population groups. As a country transitions towards higher income levels, the burden of overweight and obesity shifts. The poorest segment of the population is at low risk of obesity in poor countries, but in upper-middle income developing economies (with a gross national product per capita of over about US$ 2,500) and in high-income countries, it is the poorest who are most negatively affected. In high-income countries, while the poor bear a disproportionate burden of overweight or obesity, women are particularly at risk because their incomes are on average lower than those of men, and because men in the low-income group often are employed on tasks that are physically demanding and require large expenses of energy. Overweight or obese women tend to give birth to children who themselves tend to be overweight or obese, resulting in lower productivity and discrimination. Thus, socio-economic disadvantage is perpetuated across generations by the channel of overweight or obesity.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Food & Nutrition
- Health
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Men
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Paragraph type
- Other
Paragraph
The right to an adequate diet: the agriculture-food-health nexus 2012, para. 36
- Paragraph text
- Significant concerns are expressed today about the marketing practices of the agrifood industry, particularly as regards marketing to children. The range of practices is wide: they include television advertising, product placement, promotional partnerships, sales promotions, and direct marketing in schools, among others. Most advertisements promote unhealthy foods, high in total energy, sugars and fats, and low in nutrients. A recent study covering television advertising in Australia, Asia, Western Europe, and North and South America, found that in all sampled countries, children were exposed to high volumes of television advertising for unhealthy foods, featuring child-oriented persuasive techniques, leading the authors to call for regulation of food advertising during children's peak viewing times. The ability of these marketing practices to change consumer behaviour is remarkable in developing countries, in part because brands of North-based global companies carry positive connotations.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Food & Nutrition
- Health
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Year
- 2012
- Paragraph type
- Other
Paragraph
Vision of the mandate 2014, para. 36
- Paragraph text
- The first five years of life are the most important period of human development, with the first 1,000 days requiring special attention. Ensuring that a child receives adequate nutrition during that window of 1,000 days can have a profound impact on his or her ability to grow. It can also shape the long-term health, stability and prosperity of a society. Stunting, caused by chronic undernutrition early in a child's life, affects some 165 million children around the world. It was estimated that in 2011 more than one in every four children under five years of age in the developing world was stunted. Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia are the two regions where stunting continues to be highly prevalent, with low-income countries experiencing the highest levels. Undernutrition magnifies the effects of every disease, including measles and malaria, while malnutrition can also be caused by certain illnesses which reduce the ability of the body to convert food into usable nutrients.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Food & Nutrition
- Health
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Infants
- Year
- 2014
- Paragraph type
- Other
Paragraph
Vision of the mandate 2014, para. 38
- Paragraph text
- Although issues of undernutrition are often framed in terms of disability prevention, good nutrition is also vital for those who already live with a disability. Infants and children with disabilities suffer the same ill-effects of undernutrition as those without: poorer health outcomes; missing or delayed developmental milestones; avoidable secondary impairments; and, in extreme circumstances, premature death. The exclusion of children and adults with disabilities from nutritional outreach efforts on the basis of the incorrect belief that preserving the life of a child or adult with a disability is of lower priority than preserving the life of someone who is not disabled must be addressed by tackling such discriminatory social and cultural norms which advocate this.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Food & Nutrition
- Health
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Infants
- Persons with disabilities
- Year
- 2014
- Paragraph type
- Other
Paragraph
Vision of the mandate 2014, para. 39
- Paragraph text
- Maintaining breast-feeding programmes, especially in countries experiencing the HIV epidemic poses a major challenge. The Special Rapporteur intends to coordinate with the United Nations Children's Fund the World Health Organization and other relevant stakeholders to help develop policies for strengthening specific programmes for young children. She also encourages States to fully implement the Global Strategy on Infant and Young Child Feeding, to position breastfeeding as the norm and to respect and promote community-based food sovereignty approaches to complementary feeding. The International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes, adopted by the World Health Assembly at its thirty-fourth session in 1981 as a minimum requirement to protect and promote appropriate infant and young child feeding, should also be supplemented by further monitoring and regulation to ensure that companies responsible for the production of baby food follow similar quality control regulations for domestic use to those for export products.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Health
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Infants
- Year
- 2014
- Paragraph type
- Other
Paragraph
Vision of the mandate 2014, para. 41
- Paragraph text
- A right-to-food approach requires that States fulfil their obligation to ensure that safe, nutritionally adequate and culturally acceptable food is available; they must also respect and protect consumers and promote good nutrition for all. The Voluntary Guidelines, in particular Guidelines 9, on food safety and consumer protection, and 10, on nutrition, can guide States in the establishment and maintenance of effective food and nutrition policies, thereby increasing the protection of the most vulnerable from unsafe food and inadequate diets, while helping to combat overweight and obesity. The Convention on the Rights of the Child indicates that access to adequate nutrition, including family support for optimal feeding practices, is a right that should be supported for every child. The Special Rapporteur believes that increased focus must be placed on mother and child nutrition as the core of a healthy start in life, with the correlation between infant and young child feeding and food security being treated as a priority in all global food and nutrition security programmes and with formal recognition at the international and national level, including in legal frameworks.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Food & Nutrition
- Health
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Infants
- Year
- 2014
- Paragraph type
- Other
Paragraph
Vision of the mandate 2014, para. 60
- Paragraph text
- The Global Strategic Framework for Food Security and Nutrition of the Committee on World Food Security must also be used as a key reference tool for the implementation of effective models of governance concerning food, agriculture and nutrition for States, intergovernmental actors and the corporate private sector. Although it is not a legally binding document, it constitutes a commitment for countries to adopt its principles, options and policy base, as suited to their local needs and circumstances. The document includes provision for the rights of women and children in relation to food security and recognizes the central role played by smallholder farmers, agricultural workers, artisanal fisher folk, pastoralists and indigenous peoples. The primacy of food security and nutrition as a basic human right is the primary responsibility of the State and should be given priority over any other government policy.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Ethnic minorities
- Women
- Year
- 2014
- Paragraph type
- Other
Paragraph
Right to food and nutrition 2016, para. 70
- Paragraph text
- Those efforts indicate that business has a responsibility to protect the right to adequate food and nutrition, especially with regard to children. Yet in practice it can be difficult to hold companies to account, especially in cross-border cases involving complex corporate structures. In this regard, home States have extraterritorial obligations to seek to prevent and address human rights abuses abroad by companies domiciled within their jurisdictions. For example, if a host country is unwilling to hold a company responsible, or even provides tax-free or other incentives, the home country of the enterprise should exercise extraterritorial responsibility.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Year
- 2016
- Paragraph type
- Other
Paragraph
Right to food and nutrition 2016, para. 80
- Paragraph text
- To encourage increased consumption of healthy foods by children, some countries have implemented vegetable and fruit programmes at schools, imposed mandatory prohibitions on serving foods classified as unhealthy, and banned vending machines. Poland recently banned the sale of foods high in sugar, salt and fat in all schools, and Mexico introduced a similar ban in 2010. Other initiatives include implementing "green food zones" prohibiting the sale of fast food within the immediate vicinity of schools and banning advertising and promotion of foods that do not meet certain nutrition standards.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Food & Nutrition
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Year
- 2016
- Paragraph type
- Other
Paragraph
Access to justice and the right to food: the way forward 2015, para. 20
- Paragraph text
- In 2013, a coalition of NGOs Guatemala sin Hambre engaged in strategic litigation to claim the right to food of children suffering from chronic malnutrition and living in conditions of extreme poverty. The judgements were delivered in April 2013 by the Child and Adolescence Court of the Zacapa Department which, based on the facts, found violations of the right to food, the right to life, the right to housing and the right to an adequate standard of living. Specifically with regard to the right to food, the court grounded its reasoning on article 51 of the Constitution, which protects the right to food for children, as well as on article 11 of the Covenant and article 25 of the Universal Declaration. To define the right to food and the obligations that stem from it, the court cited general comment No. 12.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Year
- 2015
- Paragraph type
- Other
Paragraph
Integrating a gender perspective in the right to food 2016, para. 12
- Paragraph text
- Girls and women suffer from discrimination in relation to their right to food at all stages in life. In many countries, females receive less food than their male partners, due to a lower social status. In extreme cases, a preference for male children may lead to female infanticide, including by deprivation of food. Some mothers stop breastfeeding girls prematurely in order to try and get pregnant with a male, which could increase risks of infection and other risks if impure water is used with formula. Similar discrimination applies to older women who tend to be less literate than older men, in many parts of the world; this limits women's employability, participation and voice in community development activities and makes them less likely to be able to provide for themselves.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Food & Nutrition
- Gender
- Health
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Girls
- Older persons
- Women
- Year
- 2016
- Paragraph type
- Other
Paragraph
Integrating a gender perspective in the right to food 2016, para. 14
- Paragraph text
- Furthermore, girls and adolescent women induced by tradition or forced into child marriage and adolescent pregnancy, suffer the consequences of a high work burden and deprivation of their child rights, including their right to adequate nutrition and education. They are required to perform heavy amounts of domestic work, and are responsible for raising children while still children themselves. Adolescent pregnancy is a typical outcome of child marriage and complications during pregnancy and childbirth are the second cause of death for 15-19 year-old girls globally.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Food & Nutrition
- Health
- Person(s) affected
- Adolescents
- Children
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2016
- Paragraph type
- Other
Paragraph
Unhealthy foods, non-communicable diseases and the right to health 2014, para. 23
- Paragraph text
- To address the issue of aggressive marketing, some States have supported self-regulation and have allowed food companies to voluntarily regulate their practices related to marketing and nutritional content of unhealthy foods to children. Companies often voluntarily adopt self-formulated guidelines and standards to restrict Government regulation and respond public demands. They have also taken joint initiatives and formulated guidelines for member companies to restrict advertising and promoting practices with respect to children. However, self-regulation by companies has not had any significant effect on altering food marketing strategies. Due to a variety of reasons, such as the non-binding nature of such self-regulation, lack of benchmarks and transparency, inconsistent definition of children and different nutrition criteria, companies may be able to circumvent guidelines, blunting the intended effect of marketing guidelines they instituted.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Health
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Year
- 2014
- Paragraph type
- Other
Paragraph
Vision of the mandate 2014, para. 40
- Paragraph text
- In contrast to undernutrition, developed and middle-income countries, as well as the poorest countries of the world, are now faced with rising levels of chronic diseases related to obesity, including heart disease, diabetes and some cancers. Dietary changes associated with urbanization, such as increased consumption of sugars and fats and declining levels of physical activity, are largely to blame. Marketing campaigns employed by the food and beverage industry, targeting children and adolescents, also bear much of the responsibility.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Food & Nutrition
- Health
- Person(s) affected
- Adolescents
- Children
- Year
- 2014
- Paragraph type
- Other
Paragraph
The importance of social protection measures in achieving Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 2010, para. 33
- Paragraph text
- Research indicates a possible relationship between social protection and declines in child mortality (Goal 4). For example, by eliminating financial disincentives, cash transfer programmes directed at families with small children have demonstrably increased the number of regular medical check-ups for such children, thus reducing the risk of child mortality. Such programmes have also been effective in increasing the child immunization rates, reducing the incidence of illness and, in extreme cases, premature death. Similarly, food transfers have demonstrably reduced malnutrition among children.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Food & Nutrition
- Health
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- Year
- 2010
- Paragraph type
- Other
Paragraph
Human rights based approach to recovery from the global economic and financial crises, with a focus on those living in poverty 2011, para. 33
- Paragraph text
- The above-mentioned groups have suffered and continue to suffer the cumulative effects of previous crises and are in an increasingly weak and vulnerable situation. They have exhausted their coping mechanisms, such as eating fewer meals, cutting health expenditures, taking their children out of school and increasing working hours in the informal sector, and are left with very limited capacity for resilience. Their situation is further compounded by the current spike in food prices, which is forcing those living in poverty to buy even less expensive and less nutritious food.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Food & Nutrition
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Children
- Year
- 2011
- Paragraph type
- Other
Paragraph
Joint general comment No. 3 (2017) of the Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families and No. 22 (2017) of the Committee on the Rights of the Child on the general principles regarding the human rights ... 2017, para. 55e
- Paragraph text
- [States that have not yet done so are encouraged to ratify or accede to:] The Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on a communications procedure.
- Body
- Committee on Migrant Workers
- Document type
- General Comment / Recommendation
- Topic(s)
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Year
- 2017
- Paragraph type
- Other
Paragraph
Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action 1995, para. Objective L5
- Paragraph text
- Eliminate discrimination against girls in health and nutrition
- Body
- Fourth World Conference on Women
- Document type
- Declaration / Confererence outcome document
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Health
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Girls
- Year
- 1995
- Paragraph type
- Other
Paragraph
Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development 1994, para. 8.18
- Paragraph text
- For infants and children to receive the best nutrition and for specific protection against a range of diseases, breast-feeding should be protected, promoted and supported. By means of legal, economic, practical and emotional support, mothers should be enabled to breast-feed their infants exclusively for four to six months without food or drink supplementation and to continue breast- feeding infants with appropriate and adequate complementary food up to the age of two years or beyond. To achieve these goals, Governments should promote public information on the benefits of breast-feeding; health personnel should receive training on the management of breast-feeding; and countries should examine ways and means to implement fully the WHO International Code of Marketing of Breast Milk Substitutes.
- Body
- International Conference on Population and Development
- Document type
- Declaration / Confererence outcome document
- Topic(s)
- Food & Nutrition
- Health
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Infants
- Year
- 1994
- Paragraph type
- Other
Paragraph
The right to adequate food (Art. 11) 1999, para. 30
- Paragraph text
- Appropriate United Nations programmes and agencies should assist, upon request, in drafting the framework legislation and in reviewing the sectoral legislation. FAO, for example, has considerable expertise and accumulated knowledge concerning legislation in the field of food and agriculture. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has equivalent expertise concerning legislation with regard to the right to adequate food for infants and young children through maternal and child protection including legislation to enable breastfeeding, and with regard to the regulation of marketing of breast milk substitutes.
- Body
- Committee on Social, Economic and Cultural Rights
- Document type
- General Comment / Recommendation
- Topic(s)
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Health
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Infants
- Youth
- Year
- 1999
- Paragraph type
- Other
Paragraph
The right of the child to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health 2013, para. 43
- Paragraph text
- Measures for fulfilling States' obligations to ensure access to nutritionally adequate, culturally appropriate and safe food and to combat malnutrition will need to be adopted according to the specific context. Effective direct nutrition interventions for pregnant women include addressing anaemia and folic acid and iodine deficiency and providing calcium supplementation. Prevention and management of pre-eclampsia and eclampsia, should be ensured for all women of reproductive age to benefit their health and ensure healthy foetal and infant development.
- Body
- Committee on the Rights of the Child
- Document type
- General Comment / Recommendation
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Food & Nutrition
- Health
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Infants
- Women
- Year
- 2013
- Paragraph type
- Other
Paragraph
The right to an adequate diet: the agriculture-food-health nexus 2012, para. 9
- Paragraph text
- An additional nutritional challenge concerns people whose caloric intakes exceed their needs. Today, more than one billion people worldwide are overweight (with a bodily mass index (BMI) >25) and at least 300 million are obese (BMI >30). Overweight and obesity cause, worldwide, 2.8 million deaths, so that today 65 per cent of the world's population live in a country (all high-income countries and most middle-income countries) where overweight and obesity kills more people than underweight. In a country such as the United States of America, this means that today's children could have shorter life expectancies than their parents. But obesity and non-communicable diseases (NCDs) linked, in particular, to unhealthy diets are no longer limited to rich countries (see figures 1 and 2). It is estimated that by 2030, 5.1 million people will die annually before the age of 60 from such diseases in poor countries, up from 3.8 million today. Obesity and overweight affect 50 per cent or more of the population in 19 of the 34 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, but they have become public health challenges in all regions (see figure 2). Death and disease from NCDs now outstrip communicable diseases in every region except Africa, and it is expected that NCD deaths will increase globally by 15 per cent between 2010 and 2020-and by over 20 per cent in Africa, South-East Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean. Moreover, NCDs are more rapidly fatal in poorer countries. In both South-East Asia and Africa, 41 per cent of deaths caused by high BMI occur under age 60, compared with 18 per cent in high-income countries. For society, the costs are huge, directly in medical care and indirectly in lost productivity. An important time lag exists between the onset of obesity and the increase in health-care costs, but it has been estimated for instance that the costs linked to overweight and obesity in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in 2015 could increase by as much as 70 per cent relative to 2007 and could be 2.4 times higher in 2025. In countries such as India or China, the impact of obesity and diabetes is predicted to surge in the next few years. On average, a 10 per cent increase in NCDs results in a loss of 0.5 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Food & Nutrition
- Health
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Year
- 2012
- Paragraph type
- Other
Paragraph
The right to an adequate diet: the agriculture-food-health nexus 2012, para. 15
- Paragraph text
- Assessments of these various nutrition promotion initiatives and the projects under the umbrella of the SUN initiative fall outside the scope of the present report. The increasing international profile of nutrition should be welcomed. It is positive too that SUN acknowledges the need for efforts to scale up nutrition to be driven by national authorities with a cross-sectoral approach, and that it brings together commitment and support from developing country Governments, donors, civil society, development agencies and the private sector. In providing assistance however, these actors must not overlook the entitlements that have been established under international law for women, children, minorities, refugees and internally displaced persons, and other groups that may be subjected to marginalization and discrimination. The Special Rapporteur, while welcoming the progress made through SUN, calls for an explicit alignment of its initiatives with human rights, including the right to food. A number of observations should be made in this regard.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Persons on the move
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Paragraph type
- Other
Paragraph
Women’s right and the right to food 2013, para. 13
- Paragraph text
- A number of the issues that in practice are of particular concern to women could be addressed in principle through effective policies and laws, and collective bargaining. These include equality of opportunity policies, equal pay for work of equal value, maternity leave and benefits, child care issues, reproductive health services. However, apart from the general problems related to unionization on farms, male-dominated unions do not always pay sufficient attention to issues that matter especially to women. Male union representatives may fail to consider the gender implications of apparently neutral issues for collective bargaining, including how wages are determined, leave, overtime, or bonus systems since these often in reality impact on women and men differently. To address this problem, the International Union of Food and Agricultural Workers (IUF) has for example produced a gender-equality guide and aims at a 40 per cent representation of women on all its committees.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Equality & Inclusion
- Food & Nutrition
- Gender
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Women
- Year
- 2013
- Paragraph type
- Other
Paragraph
Vision of the mandate 2014, para. 8
- Paragraph text
- In its general comment No. 12 (1999) on the right to adequate food, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights defined the necessary elements required for the right to food (i.e., the possibility either to feed oneself directly from productive land or other natural resources, or to purchase food) as follows: (a) availability; (b) accessibility; and (c) adequacy. Availability relates to the presence of sufficient food on the market to meet population needs. Accessibility refers to both physical and economic access: physical accessibility means that food should be accessible to all persons, including the physically vulnerable, such as children, older persons and persons with a disability; economic accessibility means that food should be affordable without compromising other basic needs, such as education, health care or housing. Adequacy requires that food satisfy dietary needs (factoring in a person's age, living conditions, health, occupation, sex and so on), be safe for human consumption, free of adverse substances, culturally acceptable and nutritious.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Food & Nutrition
- Health
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Older persons
- Year
- 2014
- Paragraph type
- Other
Paragraph