An alarming report by the European Heart Network (EHN) calls for decisive policy initiatives, including taxes on fatty and sugary foods and controlling advertising of unhealthy foods aimed at children, as disturbing evidence continues to emerge on the impact of diet and physical activity on coronary heart disease and stroke (CVD) in Europe.
“As with tobacco, a more robust approach is overdue from European governments to tackle the problem,” said Mike Rayner, head of the EHN nutrition expert group and director of the British Heart Foundation Health Promotion Research Group at the University of Oxford, presenting the report at a conference in Brussels last Wednesday.
“Particularly so because the food industry is not measuring up,” Dr Rayner said.
He highlights the ubiquitous presence on our shop shelves and television screens of sugary drinks, processed foods such asconfectionery, fatty and salty snack foods, fast food meals which are high in salt,saturated fats and sugar, and have confusing labels with irrelevant health claims bymanufacturers.
“This is a challenge which governments must face in the public interest,” he said.
The report shows statistical evidence, as an example, of the expansion of fast food outlets such as McDonalds and sales figures by Coca Cola in a country and the rise of the rate of obesity and related coronary heartdisease.
EU subsidies, the report says, can be re-directed to promote nutritional quality in food.
“We are sitting on a ticking time bomb” warns Philip James, president of the nternational Association for the Study of Obesity.
“We are expected to work longer but people are becoming ill well before retirement,” says Prof. James, who warns about the consequences of the current lack of meaningful progress.
The new dramatic picture, with worsening trends across the board, emerges in a pan-European report ‘Diet, Physical Activity and Cardiovascular Disease Prevention in Europe’ , which was presented at the conference to Paola Testori Coggi, director general for Health and Consumers of the European Commission.
A EU veteran who is not shy of taking on big business, for years Ms Coggi was the driving force behind the EU’s shake-up of Europe’s food safety system, includingthe creation of the European FoodSafety Authority.
The cost of CVD in the EU is estimated at €192 billion – more than the entire EU budget. A total of 12,000 Europeans die every day due to heart attacks, strokes and other cardiovascular diseases.
The figures show that cardiovascular disease is causing not only premature death and accounting for nearly half of all deaths each year (48 per cent or over 4.3 million), but also chronic disability on a massive scale. It is hitting the poorest citizens the hardest.
The report, the result of two years of collaborative research involving a large number of European universities and experts, says that EU policymakers need to abandon the current failing self-regulation approach and proposes new appropriate science-based policy actions, including:
• Reformulation of food products to reduce the salt, saturated fat, and added sugar content of foods and portion size.
• Legislation to eliminate industrially produced trans fatty acids.
• Clear labelling about the nutritional quality of foods and ban on health claims with no-public health relevance.
• Ensuring availability of fresh drinking water.
• Controlling advertising of unhealthy foods aimed at children.
• Encouraging and facilitating healthy eating and active living in schools, pre-school facilities and the workplace.
• Promotion of breastfeeding and restricting the inappropriate marketing ofbreast milk substitutes.
• Economic tools (taxes and subsidies) and pricing strategies to make healthier foods more affordable and appealing, and to make less healthy foods more expensive.
• Use of the Common Agricultural Policy to promote a healthy diet across Europe.
• Oblige restaurant chains to give information to enable people to make healthier choices when they eat out.