Global Nutrition Index warns of fraud in “Coca-Cola” and “Mars” products.

The Global Nutrition Index report, recently published in its fifth edition by the Access to Nutrition Initiative, confirmed that the world’s leading food and beverage companies, including Coca-Cola and Mars, ‘ sell products in low-income countries that are not as healthy as those. . that it sells in high-income countries; This reflects differences in product offerings across different markets.

Gregus Garrett, Executive Director of the Access to Nutrition Initiative, a global non-profit organization based in the Netherlands that is involved in food policies and evaluates the contribution of the private sector in providing address global nutrition challenges: “30 of the largest food manufacturing companies, which account for a quarter of total food sales, “packaged foods around the world market their products with standards defective. “

Garrett, in a press release, said that “some companies have made progress in limiting the marketing of unhealthy foods to children under the age of sixteen, but none of the companies in the report have ‘ fully comply with the marketing standards set by the World Health Organization, especially in terms of not marketing unhealthy products to children.

For his part, Mark Winnie, director of research at the Nutrition Access Initiative, said in a press release that the findings of the report provide “a very clear picture that the products that these companies make sell in the poorest countries in the world, where they are. more and more active, not health products; Therefore, it is a call to the governments of these countries to be vigilant about this. “

The report, which was reviewed by the Hespress electronic newspaper, said that “one in five deaths worldwide is linked to malnutrition, and one in eight adults suffers from obesity , and the height of 150 million children in the world is not proportional to. their age due to malnutrition,” reveals “The cost of malnutrition is very high, as it is expected to exceed $41 trillion over the next decade. While the current cost is $21 trillion , the economic cost of obesity reaches $20 trillion.”

The report emphasized that “the trend towards increased consumption of processed foods is one of the main causes of obesity and diet-related non-communicable diseases,” noting that “although sales of the those foods at the highest levels in countries with high income, consumption. growing faster in low- and middle-income countries.” “Social and economic changes, such as urbanization and an increase in the number of women in the workforce, are contributing to this transformation.”

The same document emphasized that “food and beverage companies must make more efforts to integrate nutritional health into their core business by making healthier product offers and marketing them in a more responsible way, so that by 2030 they can sure that at least 50 percent of their sales. production portfolio comes from healthy products. “

It showed that the voluntary efforts made by companies are not enough to ensure a strong and comprehensive performance in terms of food health. Therefore, policymakers and governments intervene through measures to achieve this, especially in terms of “packaging labeling and making products rich in fat, sugar and salt more expensive, in exchange for prices reduce healthy products.”