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Dracula, blood banks…and getting serious about malnutrition
It’s World Obesity Day! Yes, there are more “World Days” in the year than there are actual days…but let’s hope today’s words and actions strengthen and accelerate actions to tackle the growing...
Inflamed — a review (…and a question)
Every now and again a book stops you in your tracks. Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice by Rupa Marya and Raj Patel is one such book. Inflamed brilliantly links globalization...
Beware the nutri-washers
The United Nations Food Systems Summit (UNFSS) has just wrapped up a three-day pre-summit – a hybrid conference involving participants in Rome and thousands more online. The goal of the summit is to...
Rebuilding trust in food systems and nutrition (part 2)
At the turn of the year the UN Food Systems Summit leadership had been talking a lot about the need for trust to make progress on food systems. I agreed, and wrote this blog: rebuilding trust in...
Digging deeper
Over the last year, the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement has been paralleled by an accelerating movement to decolonise development. Among the many papers and blogs, this Lancet...
Rebuilding trust in nutrition (part 1)
For some reason – unlike our health counterparts -- nutrition professionals tend to shy away from research and action on the commercial determinants of (mal)nutrition. They don’t want to be...
It’s About Time: Intergenerational Equity and Nutrition
In his 2019 book “Upheaval: How Nations Cope with Crises and Change”, Jared Diamond starts by interrogating the word ‘crisis’. Coming from the Greek noun ‘krisis’ and the verb ‘krino’ there...
COVID-19: Resilience or Transformation?
As the COVID-19 pandemic generates waves of impact across the globe, “resilience” is bouncing back into the development spotlight. Whether linked to health (e.g. AIDS, Ebola) or economic (food...
How will COVID-19 affect food and nutrition security in the global south?
And what can we learn from the response to the AIDS pandemic? By Stuart Gillespie and Alan Whiteside The COVID-19 pandemic is generating multiple waves of unprecedented global impacts. Epidemics in...
Focus on political and commercial drivers
The Lancet published a new series of papers on The Double Burden of Malnutrition—the combination of undernutrition (stunting, wasting, and micronutrient deficiencies) with overweight, obesity, and...
Principles, practice, and the private sector’s role in malnutrition: Time to review red lines?
The framing of malnutrition as a global problem that affects us all is long overdue. This view demands more systemic approaches, engaging the whole of society, that align with the universality of...
From Challenge to Change
Obesity is increasing in most countries, in both urban and rural settings, across socio-economic levels, among children and adults. Consequences include a heightened risk of noncommunicable...
The global syndemic of obesity, undernutrition, and climate change
A new report by the Lancet Commission on the Global Syndemic of Obesity, Undernutrition, and Climate Change delivers a powerful, incisive analysis of the drivers of those...
Tackling the double burden of malnutrition: time to innovate!
The first decade of the 21st century was one of widespread inertia toward the burgeoning “double burden,” that is, rising overweight co-existing with relatively stagnant undernutrition rates — even...
Back to the storyboard
What knowledge is needed to ride a bike? Is it enough to have a manual? Of course not… you need to get on the bike, fall off, get back on again… and eventually you’ll figure it out. The manual...
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