Giving Compass' Take:

• Governments must regulate and educate, and the food industry must offer products that are good for human health and the climate in order to tackle malnutrition.

• Over 2.1 billion people are obese or overweight while another 821 million go hungry. What are food organizations doing to stop this? 

• Read more about the issue of global malnutrition.

The global food system is failing large swaths of humanity who are deficient in nutrients needed for good health, and are either overweight or hungry.

What we eat has become the leading cause of disease and death worldwide, surpassing deaths caused by smoking or alcohol. An estimated 11 million deaths in 2017 were attributable to poor diet, according to the recent Global Burden of Disease study.

Diets high in sodium, low in whole grains, and low in fruit together accounted for more than half of such deaths that year, the researchers found.

Against the backdrop of climate change and the steep environmental cost of modern farming systems—soil degradation, water scarcity and pollution, to name a few—more experts are calling for healthier diets and an overhaul of food systems.

“Food is the single strongest lever to optimise human health and environmental sustainability on Earth,” stated EAT, an advocacy group for food system transformation, in its summary of a report released in January 2019 by the EAT-Lancet Commission on Healthy Diets for Sustainable Food Systems.

Read the full article about tackling malnutrition by Feng Zengkun at Eco-Business.