Poor nations lag in removing unhealthy trans fat from food – WHO report

What is the news?

The World Health Organization (WHO) released the third progress report on Global trans fat elimination, 2021.

What are Trans Fats?

Trans fat is an artificial compound that can be found in cakes, cookies, biscuits, packaged foods, cooking oils and spreads. 

WHO estimates that consumption of these fats cause around 500,000 deaths per year due to coronary heart disease. 

To eliminate Trans Fat, WHO has launched a REPLACE campaign: REPLACE stands for Review, Promote, Legislate, Assess, Create awareness and Enforce. It is a WHO campaign to eliminate industrially-produced artificial trans-fats from the global food supply by 2023.

What is the progress made by the countries towards the elimination of Trans fats?

Richer countries are making progress in eliminating harmful trans fat from diets by 2022.

Countries such as Bangladesh, India, the Philippines and Ukraine are adopting best-practices to eliminate trans fat.India’s policy alone covers more than 1 billion people. 

But poorer nations with the highest toll of heart disease due to the intake of such fats are lagging.

Further, International Food and Beverage Alliance (IFBA) has also committed to phase out industrial trans fat from production by 2023.

What are the recommendations given the report?

WHO recommends that countries develop, implement and enforce best-practice policies, either through setting trans fat limits or banning partially hydrogenated oils (a major source of trans fat in food).

Additional recommended approaches include:

– Investing in monitoring and surveillance

– Advocating for regional or subregional regulations to expand the benefits of trans fat policies

– Leveraging existing best-practice policies which are being implemented by a number of countries

– Providing technical support to build regulatory capacities that will encourage best-practice policy development.

Source: This post is based on the article “Poor nations lag in removing unhealthy trans fat from food – WHO report” published in Reuters on 9^th Dec 2021.