"What we eat could have more of an impact than who we vote for"

 

Daphné Duval, a public health nutritionist in the UK, was one of the main speakers at the 2019 Annual Alumni Symposium in Barcelona. In this interview, she argues that eating is a political act, an everyday action with the potential to effect changes in favour of a more sustainable system. Duval works in the field of nutrition based on scientific evidence and is a graduate from the UOC's University Master's Degree in Nutrition and Health.

The ideas and opinions expressed in this interview are solely attributable to Duval and do not represent those of her employers.

 

 

Daphné Duval, a public health nutritionist in the UK, was one of the main speakers at the 2019 Annual Alumni Symposium in Barcelona. In this interview, she argues that eating is a political act, an everyday action with the potential to effect changes in favour of a more sustainable system. Duval works in the field of nutrition based on scientific evidence and is a graduate from the UOC's University Master's Degree in Nutrition and Health.

The ideas and opinions expressed in this interview are solely attributable to Duval and do not represent those of her employers.

 

We eat three to five times a day, equivalent to the number of times we choose what we buy and where we buy it. I think that these everyday decisions could end up having more of an impact than who we vote for.

We choose where we spend our money, and these decisions support one system or another. Regularly buying industrially produced meat from the supermarket affects the economy, our health and the environment in a way that is different to what happens when we buy locally grown loose products from an independent store. Making a conscious effort to choose where our money goes is a very effective way of creating demand and achieving the changes we want to see. I think that it's easier for each individual to effect these changes in the food industry than in many other sectors of society. In the energy sector, for example, what do governments do with oil? In our homes we've got a bit more control. Food is one of the few areas where we have some power. I've seen it in England, where supermarkets and the food system are changing thanks to the demand created by consumers. Now there's talk of this kind of shift in Spain.

Awareness comes from educating the general population. Over the last few years in Spain, people have become much more aware of the importance of what they eat. Social media has played a significant role, although it is not all positive due to the fact that some people give nutritional advice without really having any idea what they are talking about. But there are also people in Spain who have a lot of positive influence and have helped to raise awareness about the importance of eating well and understanding that our food system has an environmental impact.

Yes, that is even more of a political issue. Climate change also means it is very likely that this equality gap will widen, which is very worrying. In my final master's degree project at the UOC, I focused on food poverty in London, and it's not so much the case that people in living precarious circumstances don't know that they need to eat vegetables; they don't eat them because they are expensive and complicated to prepare, or they lack a suitable kitchen space, or work complicated hours, etc. In some areas of London, they are also faced with an abundance of cheap fast food options, which goes hand in hand with the limited access to healthy and affordable food. The first thing that needs to change is for these communities to have higher purchasing power, because if they cannot even pay their bills at the end of the month, what they eat inevitably falls into second place. There are solutions, but they require political drive.

I really believe in the power of taxes. We should have a tax system in place that makes the least-sustainable and least-healthy products more expensive, and the healthier, more sustainable products more affordable. There has been a lot of debate recently in England over a possible meat tax that reflects the meat industry's environmental cost. But it doesn't seem likely that it will gain much ground as it would increase the inequality gap, among other things: lower-income households, who tend to have less access to healthy and affordable alternatives, would no longer be able to afford meat, whilst higher-income households, who tend to have a bigger environmental footprint, could continue enjoying their meat. It would need to be a more complex system, one where if you introduce a meat tax, other taxes would be lowered. It's also important to introduce programmes that improve access to healthy and affordable food for those that need it. If not, inequality will simply increase. There's no easy solution and it's a very complex issue. There are also a lot of lobbies. What is important: everyone who is able to needs to make these changes to healthier and more sustainable diets, in order to create the demand I was talking about earlier.

It's all related. You can choose to buy something that's highly processed, that's unhealthy and generates a lot of waste, or buy more fruits, vegetables and grains, without consuming plastic. There are more and more options to buy produce loose or with less plastic, even in supermarkets. This is an example of change influenced by growing demand.

There's not much time left. We don't have an exact figure, just estimations and uncertainties as to how long it will take. We know we're heading for disaster, and fast, but it really is worth trying. If not, what are we going to do? We have to make an effort, even if it only improves by a little the lives of future generations.

In recent years, yes. The United Kingdom has high levels of obesity: two third of adults and a third of children are considered overweight or obese. In 2016, the UK government began implementing quite a comprehensive strategy to combat childhood obesity, which included measures related to access to healthy food, physical activity, fast food advertising on the television and online, and so on. Something else they did was impose a tax on sugary drinks. The tax is banded, so a drink with 5 g of sugar per 100 ml, or less, won't incur any taxes. This has encouraged many industries to revise their products so that they are classed below these limits and do not fall within these new tax bands. In turn, this means that the sugar content of these drinks, which many people consume every day, has been reduced. There are also programmes to re-examine the amounts of calories and sugar in products consumed by children. The idea is that, although people may not change their habits, they are consuming fewer calories and less sugar.

Well, yes, education is important, and the ideal thing would be for each of us to shift our habits towards a healthier and more sustainable diet thanks to education. However, studies show that education has very little impact in this respect. We live in an obesogenic world, surrounded by temptations. No matter how many times we're told a doughnut is not healthy, it's very easy to give in. Especially in the kinds of circumstances we commented upon before. Still, we need education, among other things, in order to justify the other measures and to increase our general awareness.

It's what is known as the double burden of malnutrition. On the one hand, there are problems stemming from undernutrition, but there is also the problem of obesity, as well as others in big cities.