Improving diets for better health and sustainability

Recognizing the urgent need to promote diets that are healthy and have low environmental impacts while at the same time are socio-culturally acceptable and economically accessible for all, FAO and WHO organized an expert consultation from 1-3 July 2019, in Rome. For that consultation, a series of background papers were commissioned, which are now published in The Food and Nutrition Bulletin supplement Volume 41 Issue 2_suppl, December 2020: Improving Diets for Better Health and Sustainability.

The Sustainable and Healthy Diets Supplement contains one editorial and six expert papers that can be accessed online. The 6 papers presented are the product of the work done before, during, and after the expert consultation, culminating in an in-depth peer-review process. They are covering (1) the elements and definitions of healthy diets; (2) the role of healthy diets in environmentally sustainable food systems; (3) the role of sociocultural influences in shaping choices for sustainable diets; (4) the role of the food environment; (5) territorial diets; and (6) food safety implications of Sustainable Healthy Diets.

The information contained in this Supplement adds meaningful contributions toward the evidence base on how to transform toward more sustainable healthy diets while taking into consideration context-specific barriers and managing trade-offs. This comes at a critical moment, where countries and other stakeholders prepare for the forthcoming Nutrition for Growth Summit and the UN Food System Summit in 2021. This scientific work will feed into the dialogues and further inspire and strengthen country-level action toward sustainable food systems enabling healthy diets over the second half of the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition.