Latin America to Tackle Dual Problems of Hunger and Obesity: United Nations Anastasia Moloney - Thomson Reuters Foundation
go to original March 5, 2016

Burning off Mexico's obesity epidemic (Al Jazeera English)

Latin American governments have pledged to work toward ending hunger within a decade while tackling an epidemic of rising obesity in the region - itself considered a form of malnutrition.

At a regional meeting of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), government representatives from across Latin American and the Caribbean drew up plans to accelerate cuts in hunger, which has halved in the region in the last 25 years.

At the same time, far more attention needs to be paid to combating obesity, particularly among women, in a region where nearly a quarter of all adults are obese, the FAO said.

"Countries have been very clear: the regional priority is to eradicate hunger by 2025," Jose Graziano da Silva, head of the FAO said at the meeting in Mexico City which ended on Thursday.

Efforts to combat hunger will focus on Central America's "dry corridor" running through Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, where millions of people have been affected by a prolonged drought exacerbated by climate change.

"Today, climate change has caused those droughts to be more erratic, prolonged and unpredictable," Graziano da Silva said.

Read the rest at GlobalPost

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