Novo Nordisk and UNICEF to extend joint initiative to prevent global childhood obesity
20 Septiembre 2023 - 1:58PM
Novo Nordisk and UNICEF to extend joint initiative to prevent
global childhood obesity
New York and Bagsværd, 20 September 2023 – Novo
Nordisk and UNICEF today announced an extension of their long-term
partnership to help prevent global childhood overweight and obesity
- a public health crisis that affects millions of children
worldwide.
Over the next three years Novo Nordisk will commit 8 million US
dollars to scale and accelerate efforts to create healthier
environments for children through policy implementation and
innovations that enable children to eat well, play and be
physically active. The aim is to positively impact at least 10
million children.
With the intention to share best practices, knowledge and tools
globally, the partnership is intensifying its efforts in Latin
America and the Caribbean and expanding to the East Asia and the
Pacific region with deeper work in Mexico, Colombia, Brazil and
Indonesia.
“Childhood obesity prevention is critical as the current
trajectory for obesity is unsustainable, placing increased pressure
on countries across the world,” said Katrine DiBona, corporate vice
president for Global Public Affairs & Sustainability at Novo
Nordisk. “UNICEF and Novo Nordisk believe that preventing childhood
obesity is a shared societal responsibility that requires systemic
change. With the expansion of our partnership, we are excited to
continue our work to build healthy environments that enable and
empower children to thrive.”
Since launching in 2019, the partnership has been at the
forefront of driving systemic changes to prevent childhood
overweight and obesity, positively impacting the lives of more than
2.6 million children and caregivers across Latin America and the
Caribbean through direct programmatic interventions. Additionally,
the partnership has also played a crucial role in enhancing
legislation in Mexico and Colombia, ensuring greater protection,
promotion, and support for child nutrition and health.
“The continuation of our partnership with Novo Nordisk supports
our global prevention agenda to tackle the escalating prevalence of
childhood overweight and obesity. We aim to accelerate efforts in
preventing childhood overweight and obesity through systemic action
in policies, programmes and practices that will have a profound
impact on the nutrition, growth and development of millions of
children,” said Victor Aguayo, Director of Nutrition and Child
Development at UNICEF.
Building upon insights gained during the past three years, Novo
Nordisk and UNICEF will focus specifically on improving the food
and urban systems that often dictate the health and well-being of
children. The partnership aims to support more local and national
governments to implement sustainable policy change to improve
children’s access to nutritious, safe, affordable diets as well as
opportunities to be physically active. To do so, the partnership
will continue to create evidence to enhance knowledge among
decision makers and advocate to shift the narrative on childhood
overweight and obesity away from individual blame and towards the
structural drivers.
Concrete local activities will:
- Advocate for school food environment
regulations in Brazil that prohibit the sale or promotion of
harmful ultra-processed food products.
- Design innovations to monitor the
improved regulation of unhealthy food marketing directed at
children online in Mexico.
- Pilot innovative interventions to
improve urban food retail environments in Indonesia.
- Strengthen nutrition labelling
regulations in Colombia.
Overweight and obesity affect around 40 million children under 5
globally, and an additional 340 million children and adolescents
aged 5-19. Alarmingly, approximately three quarters of affected
children reside in low- and middle-income countries.1 The Latin
America & the Caribbean and East Asia & the Pacific regions
alone are home to nearly half of the world’s children under the age
of five living with overweight or obesity.
About Novo Nordisk Novo Nordisk is a leading
global healthcare company, founded in 1923 and headquartered in
Denmark. The company’s purpose is to drive change to defeat serious
chronic diseases, built upon its heritage in diabetes. It does so
by pioneering scientific breakthroughs, expanding access to its
medicines, and working to prevent and ultimately cure disease. Novo
Nordisk employs about 59,000 people in 80 countries and markets its
products in around 170 countries.
About UNICEFUNICEF works in some of the world’s
toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children.
Across more than 190 countries and territories, we work for every
child, everywhere, to build a better world for everyone. UNICEF
nutrition programming aims to support countries to address all
forms of malnutrition – that is, undernutrition (wasting,
stunting), micronutrient deficiencies, as well as overweight and
obesity. Importantly, UNICEF works exclusively on the prevention of
childhood overweight and obesity. UNICEF does not endorse
companies, products, brands, or services. Additionally, the
research and knowledge generated by this partnership is exclusively
controlled by UNICEF to guarantee neutrality.
Read more: novonordisk.com and UNICEF.com
Contacts for further
information:
Novo
Nordisk Media: |
|
Lars Otto
Andersen-Lange +45 3448 1298abmo@novonordisk.com |
Elizabeth
DeLuca (US)+1 609 580
9868edel@novonordisk.com |
|
|
UNICEF Denmark |
UNICEF Global |
Morten Bredal+45 2148 1883
MBredal@unicef.dk, |
Laila
Ali+41 76 784 65 32laali@unicef.org |
1 World Health Organization. Obesity and Overweight. [Online]
World Health Organization. Available at:
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/obesity-and-overweight
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