Dishing Out Pressure to WHO

Bush White House Finds New Ways to Kill All of Us.

GENEVA (Reuters) - Consumer activists on Tuesday accused the World Health Organization (WHO) of "caving in" to the United States and the junk food industry after the U.N. agency revised its blueprint for tackling obesity worldwide. They said a draft of WHO's Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity was weakened by changes including deletion of a passage urging states to offer incentives for producing, marketing and transporting fruit, vegetables and other healthy produce. The plan aims to promote healthy foods and lifestyles amid soaring death rates from cardiovascular disease and diabetes. The draft, revised since a debate by WHO's executive board in January, was issued on Monday after officials studied suggestions and objections from member states and food industry lobbyists. "The WHO caved into the United States and the junk food industry by deleting support for policies that promote the production and marketing of fruit, vegetables and legumes," the U.S.-based group Commercial Alert said in a statement. "The advertising and junk food industries should be happy because it doesn't encourage countries to ban junk food advertising to children," the non-profit group added. Critics say Washington bowed to pressure from its powerful food industry to water down the plan. WHO's 192 member states, who ordered the strategy drawn up two years ago, are due to endorse a final document at their annual assembly in May. Poor diets and physical inactivity are among the major causes of noncommunicable diseases -- cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, cancers and obesity-related conditions -- which WHO says now account for 60 percent of 56.5 million preventable deaths a year. The toll is set to rise to 73 percent by 2020. According to the World Heart Federation, 1.1 billion adults and 22 million children under age five are obese. In the United States, two-thirds of adults are overweight. The WHO plan states simply that governments "can influence prices through taxation, subsidies or direct pricing in ways that encourage healthy eating and lifelong physical activity." While recommending that people limit intakes of fats, sugar and salt, it does not lay down specific targets or recommend taxing such goods. "We do recommend that fiscal policies take into account public health considerations. We leave it to countries to decide what those specific policies will be," WHO's project manager Amalia Waxman told Reuters. At least 30 minutes of regular, moderate physical activity "on most days" is also recommended to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes, colon and breast cancers.