The UN's war on trans fat must not come at the cost of nutrition in Africa

Telegraph

5 days ago

For many of the world's poorest, a simple glass of milk can make a big difference where dietary diversity is limited.
As a rich source of micronutrients like B12, calcium, zinc, and essential fatty acids, which are critical to children's healthy development, milk is one of the most affordable and accessible nutrient-dense foods in rural and low-income areas.
We must be careful, therefore, that a new United Nations declaration that seeks to eliminate trans-fatty acids to reduce diet-related illness does not unintentionally affect access to this important food, along with other nutritious forms of dairy and meat.
To avoid a potentially harmful misstep and protect the rights of the poorest to basic, healthy nutrition, UN negotiators must draw a clear line between animal-source foods, which contain low levels of trans-fatty acids, and industrially-produced sources with much higher concentrations presenting greater risk to health.
The UN's push to address the growing global burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), including conditions like heart disease and diabetes, is essential and welcome.
In Ethiopia where I am based, for example, NCDs such as heart disease, chronic respiratory diseases, and diabetes are a growing public health concern, recently ranking among the leading causes of death. This is increasingly the case across many developing countries, where healthcare systems are less equipped to diagnose or manage related health consequences.
To be effective, interventions like the proposed declaration need to include adequate attention to the realities faced by developing nations. This includes acknowledging complex nutritional paradoxes, such as alarming rates of infant undernutrition, including stunting, which not only increases the risk of obesity and diet-related illness in later life, but also stunts brain development and impacts educational and economic outcomes in adulthood.
Counter-intuitively, children who suffer from undernutrition in their early life are more likely to suffer obesity and NCDs as adults. This cruel irony of early deprivation, often referred to as the 'developmental origins of health and disease,' underscores the critical need for a careful, holistic approach to nutrition from early life onwards.
The impacts of childhood undernutrition are felt far and wide – undernutrition can cost developing nations up to 16 per cent of GDP, and the cost will be much higher if the burden of NCDs are included.
The declaration to reduce trans-fatty acid consumption should focus on industrial sources and help shape Africa's food systems by pushing for policies that prevent trans-fatty acids from entering diets through processed foods. It should guide the development of a healthier food processing industry – one that limits or eliminates industrial trans-fats altogether.
Industrially-produced trans-fatty acids pose a significantly higher health risk than those that occur naturally in small amounts in dairy and meat due to their concentrations. For comparison, industrial trans-fatty acids can reach concentrations of up to 60 per cent of fat content in processed foods, whereas natural trans-fatty acids in animal-source foods typically make up just 2–5 per cent.
On the other hand, it is important to recognise that even small amounts of animal-source foods – just a glass of milk or a single egg per day – come packaged with critical nutrients, which protect against nutrient deficiencies. Research by the International Food Policy Research Institute, for example, has shown that regular milk consumption corresponds with significant reductions in child stunting across low- and middle-income countries.
This means that in communities facing chronic food insecurity, animal-source foods such as milk are not just beneficial, but essential. More than 700 million people around the world face hunger each year, many of them in Africa. We therefore must be careful not to design policies that unfairly limit access to these foods, or else we risk undermining efforts to improve diets and nutrition in low-income settings.
It is crucial, then, as UN negotiators prepare the final wording of the resolution on trans-fatty acids, that a distinction is made between those found in animal-source foods and those in industrially-produced foods. The declaration must endeavour to foster a food systems transformation trajectory that eliminates trans-fats from processed foods as the food processing industry evolves in these settings.
If we fail to do so, we risk inadvertently creating policies that further jeopardise the diets, nutrition and health of the most vulnerable by discouraging access to sources of important nutrients. If we do not effectively address undernutrition, the human cost could ironically increase the prevalence of NCDs by driving up childhood undernutrition.
In many African settings, where the food processing industry is still in its nascent stages, we have an opportunity to take a different diet-centred path to developed nations and avoid the challenges that come with mass production of industrial trans-fatty acids.
NCDs are a global health emergency demanding urgent action. This burden is growing, and falling heaviest on developing countries, as in Africa where diagnosis and treatment are limited and where NCDs are linked to undernutrition in childhood. Better diets and nutrition call for nuanced access and food systems transformation for all people and the planet.