Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is a pleasure to join you today in this timely event. I wish to thank the International Life Sciences Institute for bringing attention to the issue of the nutritional needs of the ageing population and, by doing so, underscoring the potential this group has to contribute to achieving the SDGs.
The extensive and inclusive preparations that have taken place for the Food Systems Summit to date, greatly contributed to a growing understanding that food systems must be able to support diverse sets of needs including good nutrition across the life cycle.
The efforts to bring different stakeholders together reflect the 2019 Global Sustainable Development Report’s call for a multilateral and coherent action to bring about transformations in food systems, within local contexts.
Our new demographic reality demands that any conversation fully incorporates older persons and population ageing. This includes any discussion on transforming the way the world produces, consumes and thinks about food, leaving no one behind.
As all of you know, there is no question that people around the world are living longer. Global ageing is unprecedented, it is pervasive and enduring. Between 2020 and 2050, the number of older persons is projected to more than double to 1.5 billion, where 1 in 6 people in the world will be an older person. Life expectancies at 65 are also increasing: this means more productive years ahead, and different nutritional needs. Women are living longer than men and the aging population is growing fastest in East Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean.
The 2019 Global Sustainable Development Report urged for a transition toward more sustainable food systems and nutrition patterns globally, as a requirement for achieving the 2030 Agenda. Specifically it advocated for food systems to deliver nutritious food for a global population of 9 to 10 billion people, while greatly reducing the environmental impacts. Technological innovation, strategic use of economic incentives, new forms of governance and changes in values and behaviour can all be applied to enable transformation in this direction.
For example, research on the consumption and behaviour patterns of older people could help to inform food loss and waste prevention measures. Also actively including older women, who make up an increasingly large proportion of small-holder farmers, in decision-making processes of resource management, could increase agricultural output and provide much needed earnings.
Diet is a key modifiable factor that influences healthy ageing, wellbeing, and a better quality of life. Healthy food consumption is also linked to cognitive development, and has longer term health benefits such as reducing the risk of becoming overweight or obese, and of developing non-communicable diseases.
Healthy nutrition throughout our lives mostly acts as a determinant for many disorders of older age. For this reason, it should be a priority to improve nutrition since younger ages, to prevent common noncommunicable diseases.
Once in old age, good nutrition remains key. Not only the loss of muscle mass, strength, and function that is a natural part of the ageing process, can be associated with poor nutrition; but also, nutrition is a key factor in maintaining vitality in older age; nutritional status impacts physiological changes that accompany ageing. Indeed, interventions with older persons that address among other things, nutritional support, have been proven to improve cognitive outcomes among older persons.
At the same time, evidence shows that sensory impairments, poor oral health, isolation, loneliness, complex long term health conditions and depression – individually or in combination – can increase the risk of malnutrition in older people, unless these are addressed in public policy. Primary health care workers should make initial assessments of nutritional status of older patients and guide them towards a healthy diet, taking into account each individual’s specificities.
In some settings, older persons are particularly vulnerable to poor nutrition, in some cases lacking access to food. In emergency and humanitarian crises, for instance, it has been shown that food aid packages do not cater for the particular nutritional requirements of older persons; similarly, needs assessments and programmes do not include older persons.
So, what can we do about this?
DESA is committed in supporting several international frameworks on ageing and its repercussions for society, including on food systems.
Earlier this year, Member States endorsed the timeline for the fourth review and appraisal of the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing (MIPAA); a landmark document for building an inclusive society for all ages. Endorsed in 2002, the MIPAA recognized the importance of older persons’ access to food and adequate nutrition as part of its goal to ensuring health promotion and well-being throughout life.
Among other things, the Madrid International Plan of Action encourages ensuring that that specific nutritional needs are met throughout the life course; it calls for particular attention to nutritional deficiencies and associated diseases in the design and implementation of health promotion and prevention programmes for older persons; and it appeals Member States to include specific nutritional needs of older persons into curricula of training programmes for all health and relevant care workers and professionals. I invite you to consult this document to dive into the different actions that it identifies.
Another important tool at our disposal to raise awareness and promote conversations around older age, ageing and food systems and nutrition is the United Nations Decade of Healthy Ageing. The decade is a global collaboration to improve the lives of older people, their families, and the communities in which they live, in line with the last decade of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Health in older age is not random. Much of that diversity is related to inequality or disadvantage accumulated across the life course and into old age due to factors including socioeconomic status, gender or location. People retain the right to enjoy the “highest attainable standard of health” as they age, and the Decade provides an opportunity to shift the focus from healthy ageing as merely the absence of disease, to fostering older people’s functional ability to be and do what they value.
This summit will shed light on possible new models of food production and consumption that are sustainable, including investing in food systems innovations to ensure that local, affordable, and sustainable foods are accessible to all. Innovation can help to cut costs in food production and distribution; support local small-scale producer to grow more nutritious foods and access markets; foster behaviour change through education and communication; and embed nutrition in national social protection systems.
None of these changes will be truly inclusive, however, if they are not grounded on new demographic realities, including population ageing and the needs and challenges that older persons face. We in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs look forward to engaging with all and to the discussions and actions that I hope this Summit will trigger.
Thank you