The Ghana Non-Communicable Diseases Alliance (GhNCDA) has raised concerns about the alarming rate of obesity among children.
According to GhNCDA, childhood obesity has become a major health threat of the 21st century with millions of school children being either obese or overweight.
Moreover, the increase in obesity rates can be attributed to the rapid changes in diet patterns over the past few decades.
GhNCDA, as part of the Healthier Diets for Healthy Lives Project (HD4HL) in a webinar organized on Friday, January 26, 2024 revealed that there has been a shift from nutritious organic foods towards unhealthy foods, packaged snacks, and calorie-dense meals, which have become major contributors to this problem.
The program aimed at raising awareness about the importance of food labelling policies in promoting public health and the potential of food labelling policies in preventing and reducing child obesity rates.
The advocacy group advised that as childhood obesity is multi-factorial in origin with unhealthy foods being a major contributor, solutions need to be explored from all avenues.
Among the many interventions to prevent diet-related Non-Communicable Diseases, it is apparent that effective food labelling policies can reduce the burden as food labels provide nutritional information that helps consumers make healthier food choices.
Consumer information plays a crucial role in food purchasing and simple food labels have been found to be more effective in guiding consumer choices.
Likewise, packaging elements attracting children’s attention and misleading health-related visual and textual cues may encourage young people to choose energy-dense food products with excessive content of sugar, fat, and sodium.
Thus, the group urged that effective food labelling policies should be targeted at enabling young people to make informed decisions for healthier food choices. Policies should also include restrictions on the use of false indications on food products, as they ultimately influence the diet and the food available in the household.
Mr. Labram M. Musah, the Executive Director of Vision for Alternative Development Ghana and the National Coordinator for Ghana NCD Alliance in his open address noted that Ghana like other countries, has its fair share of childhood obesity cases and even though food labels help reduce the burden, policies on food labelling in Ghana are scanty and unstandardized.
He added that existing food labelling practices in Ghana are challenged with readability, scanty information, incomprehensible terminologies, and unfamiliar language problems.
