By Albert Allotey
Accra. July 22, GNA – Mr Issah Ali, Project Manager of the Institute of Leadership and Development (INSLA), has urged civil society organisations (CSOs) to work as a team and use their platforms to raise awareness of the dangers of unhealthy diets.
He said foods high in salt, sugar or sugar-sweetened beverages and trans-fat acid were causing great harm to the health of the people and there was the need to sensitise them to influence their eating habits.
He urged policymakers to take swift action through the passage of legislation to address the unhealthy diet challenges that were facing the population within the food environment to encourage them to eat natural fruits, and vegetables, and use unsaturated fats.
Mr Ali gave the advice in an interview with the Ghana News Agency after orientation on the World Health Organisation (WHO) Healthy Public Food Procurement and Service Policies (HPFPSP) organised by INSLA for CSOs and community-based organisations in Accra.
The programme was on the theme: “Healthy Food Procurement and Service Policy Saves Lives,” and it was supported by the Coalition of Actors for Public Health Advocacy (CAPHA).
Mr Benjamin Anabila, Director of INSLA, explained that his organisation was leading in the implementation of HPFPSP under CAPHA, which is a coalition made up of CSOs, academia and the Ministry of Health.
He said the coalition’s aim was to make sure healthy diets were promoted so that the citizenry would have healthy lives, and that INSLA was championing the educational campaign on public food procurement and services.
“That is what we have been tasked to undertake and we cannot do it alone so we need to bring in other Healthy Diet Alliance Ghana members on board so that we can all champion the agenda together, hence the orientation,” he stated.
Mr Suleiman Yahaya, HD4HL Project Coordinator of INSLA, in a presentation, said according to the WHO, unhealthy diets were responsible for millions of deaths worldwide and it was the leading risks factors for disabilities and deaths.
“Diets which include excess salt, sugars and bad fats kill around eight million people yearly and non-communicable diseases account for 42 per cent of total deaths and 31 per cent of disease burden in Ghana.
“It kills an estimated 86,000 persons in Ghana with 55.5 per cent of them aged less than 70 years,” according to the WHO.
Mr Yahaya said the 2019 Ghana Healthy Food Environment Policy Index (Food-EPA) highlighted the urgent need for food labelling and regulation of food products in Ghana.
The coordinator quoted President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on May 31, 2020, during the COVID-19 address to the nation series, saying: “The risk factors for these diseases (underlying health conditions of living or dying of Covid-19) are being overweight, eating refined foods, too much salt and sugar in meals, … It is thus, crucial that we …, adopt healthy eating practices …, which boost our immune systems.”
Mr Yahaya stated that the purpose of HPFPSP was to support countries to develop, implement, assess compliance and evaluate the effectiveness of a healthy public food procurement and service policy.
“The action framework is to promote healthy and sustainable diets, food safety and adequate macro- and micronutrient intake to prevent all forms of malnutrition, the policies ensure that food the government purchases, serves, and/or sells in and through public institutions meet healthy nutrition standard,” he said.
GNA