A Joint Meeting of the High Level Group on Nutrition and the EU Platform for action on Diet, Physical Activity and Health took place on 28 and 29 November 2011. Commissioner Dalli partly attended the meeting to present the developments that happened since 2010 and his expectation for the future work of the Platform.
A Joint Meeting of the High Level Group on Nutrition and the EU Platform for action on Diet, Physical Activity and Health took place on 28 and 29 November 2011. Participants mainly discussed the issues of marketing and advertising and reformulation.
On 28th of November 2011, the meeting began with a Commission presentation of the latest diet and nutrition-related developments, being studies, reports, or national initiatives that took place since the last Platform meeting. In that context, Mr Philippe Roux (DG SANCO) encouraged Platform members to send, for future meetings, any news/updates relevant to the advancement of the Platform work.
A series of presentations took then place on stakeholders’ initiatives and commitments in the area of marketing and advertising. A presentation from the Danone project “Mam, Dad, I prefer water” implemented in several Polish schools was notably largely debated.
When presenting the latest monitoring report of the EU Pledge implementation, Stephan Loerke (World Federation of Advertisers), shared with the participants the new steps signing companies committed to: a stricter audience coverage (35% of children under 12 rather than the previous 50%), more uniform nutritional criteria and a broader coverage with notably McDonald’s joining the Pledge from January 2012.
Dr Tim Lobstein (International Association for the Study of Obesity) updated participants on the StanMark Project, a Project aiming at developing international standards for the marketing of foods and beverages to children.
Mrs Haga Rimestad (Norwegian Directorate of Health) presented the WHO European Network on Reducing Marketing Pressure on Children.
On 29 November 2011, John Dalli, EU Commissioner for Health and Consumer Policy and Paola Testori Coggi, Director General of DG SANCO, attended part of the day meeting. Paola Testori Coggi began addressing the audience by highlighting that prevention was a must in times of economic crisis and that a reflection process has been launched on what could be better done at the EU level.
Commissioner Dalli presented some of the progress made in the area of physical activity, marketing and advertising, and reformulation notably. He emphasised that a number of the challenges remained including the ageing population, lifestyle habits and the need to have more coherent and consistent agriculture, health and education policies. He concluded his intervention by highlighting that further commitment were needed as well as the scaling up of current efforts. Space was then left for questions that notably focused on children’s health, nutrient profiles, botanicals, food taxation etc. Dalli speech is available here.
Food reformulation, including the progress made in the EU Salt Framework, were then presented.
The next meeting of the EU Platform for action on Diet, Physical Activity and Health will take place on 9 February 2012.
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For further information
European Commission flash report on the meeting
EPHA related articles
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