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11 August 2021Child-centred food systems: Ensuring healthy diets for children
Child-centred food systems: Ensuring healthy diets for children
It is widely acknowledged that investing in children’s nutrition early in life can enhance their survival, health, cognitive function and development potential. Yet there is a growing awareness of how different food systems are driving a double burden of malnutrition and damaging both children’s health and the environment. The high levels of undernutrition in children and the rapidly growing burden of overweight and obesity, if left unchecked, will continue to adversely affect national development. It is therefore essential to locate children within the broader food system, in order to mobilise a collective and coordinated effort to create a food system that supports healthy, affordable and sustainable diets for children and adolescents.
This chapter addresses the following questions:
- What does a healthy diet for children look like?
- Why is it important to adopt a food systems approach?
- What other systems affect children’s nutritional status?
- What do we know about the food system in South Africa?
- What are the opportunities to improve the quality of food for children?