Webinar: Unravelling the Food-Health Nexus

JOIN THE GLOBAL ALLIANCE FOR THE FUTURE OF FOOD FOR A WEBINAR TUESDAY 12 DECEMBER 2017

Food is a cornerstone of good health. Yet food systems affect health through multiple, interconnected pathways, generating severe human and economic costs.

Unravelling the Food-Health Nexus – a report commissioned by the Global Alliance for the Future of Food and written by IPES-Food (International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems)  - provides a comprehensive overview of the health impacts of food systems, identifying the channels through which food systems affect human health, and how prevailing power relations and imperatives in food systems help to shape our understanding of the impacts they generate. The report asks why evidence gaps persist, why negative impacts are systematically reproduced, and why certain problems are not politically prioritized.

For anyone interested in the Food-Health Nexus, this webinar will feature Lead Author Cécilia Rocha who will share highlights of the report, showing how unhealthy work conditions, contamination of water, soil and air, contaminated foods, unhealthy diets, and food insecurity interact in interrelated, self-reinforcing, and complex ways. She will also highlight five leverage points that can be used to build healthier food systems. Three respondents will comment on the findings and recommendations and their implications, followed by a short Q&A. The discussion will focus on what action we can take collectively to accelerate a shift from a food system that often results in harm to a system based on health promotion and protection.

This webinar will provide participants with leading-edge research on the health impacts of food systems, insight from global thought leaders, and a deeper understanding of the systems-based solutions needed to move forward to address these complex issues.

Registration is available online here.

Lead presenter:

Cécilia Rocha - IPES-Food member / Ryerson University

Cécilia Rocha is Director of the School of Nutrition at Ryerson University (Toronto) and a leading authority on food and nutrition policies in Brazil, including the successful experiments in the municipality of Belo Horizonte. With a PhD in Economics, Cécilia previously held the post of Director of the Centre for Studies in Food Security, Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada (2005-2010). Since the late 1990s, Cécilia has been following and analyzing the policies and programs for food and nutrition security in Belo Horizonte, Brazil -- one of the most successful municipalities to advance the cause of food and nutrition security. Cécilia has also been studying food and nutrition security policies at the national level in Brazil. She brings to the panel her impressions on what are some leverage points leading to successful policies. She has used the concept of “market failures” as the basis for the need for policy in transforming food systems.