UN Advisor Denounces Junk Food As ‘Culprit’ In Rising NCDs, Calls For Change 11/06/2014 by Catherine Saez, Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)Click to print (Opens in new window)Governments must assert the human right to health and take action against the massive rise in obesity globally, brought about by the widespread availability and pervasive marketing of unhealthy “junk” foods, Anand Grover, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to health, urged today. Grover presented his final report, entitled, “Unhealthy foods, non-communicable diseases and the right to health,” today to the UN Human Rights Council. The report detailed harms in free trade agreements, which can put industry interests ahead of consumer interests. “the function of States to formulate domestic policy gets distorted in favour of the private rights of food and beverage industries, rather than the public rights of the affected population” – Anand Grover Containing high levels of sugar, salt, trans-fats and saturated fats, “junk food” has replaced healthy foods in diets, he said in a release. Junk food “is not a simple public health issue or a medical concern,” he said, “it poses a serious challenge to our lives, our health and our rights.” Grover blamed junk food – with high levels of sugar, salt, trans-fats and saturated fats – for the growing number of overweight or obese people, now reaching almost one third of humanity. “Policies of globalization, market consolidation by transnational companies and supermarket chains, skewed foreign direct investment, aggressive advertising of ultra-processed foods and changes in our lifestyles have driven the social transition to unhealthy diets,” he said. He called for governments to take measures, such as developing food and nutrition guidelines for healthy diets, regulating marketing and advertising of junk food, adopting consumer-friendly labelling of food products, and establishing accountability mechanisms for violations of the right to health. He also called for industry to “refrain from activities undermining people’s right to health.” In particular, in his report, Grover pointed to commercial investment treaties and bilateral trade agreements. These treaties “cast obligations that are automatically binding on States. To abide by these obligations, States may be compelled to modify national policies such as agricultural or labelling policies,” he said. “As a result, the function of States to formulate domestic policy gets distorted in favour of the private rights of food and beverage industries, rather than the public rights of the affected population,” he said. He also advocated for states entering in such treaties to “make the content of negotiations and agreements available for public scrutiny and invite comments by stakeholders before entering into these agreements.” Last month World Health Organization Director General Margaret Chan blasted junk food in her opening speech of the World Health Assembly (IPW, WHO, 19 May 2014). Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)Click to print (Opens in new window) Related Catherine Saez may be reached at csaez@ip-watch.ch."UN Advisor Denounces Junk Food As ‘Culprit’ In Rising NCDs, Calls For Change" by Intellectual Property Watch is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.