Worldwide obesity has tripled since 1975, with, for example, more than 340m children and adolescents aged five to 19 being overweight or having obesity in 2020. With this in mind, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has just released updated dietary guidance, reflecting a new emphasis on lifelong healthy nutrition.
The new guidance comes in the form of several documents, including:
• Total fat intake for the prevention of unhealthy weight gain in adults and children: WHO guideline
• Saturated fatty acid and trans-fatty acid intake for adults and children: WHO guideline
• Carbohydrate intake for adults and children: WHO guideline
The agency is focusing less on fat and carbohydrate quantity than in the past and looking more closely at quality, but continues to recommend that adults should limit their consumption of fats to 30% or less of their daily calories, reports Medical News Today.
And for younger people, the guidelines strongly recommend that children under two should ingest mostly unsaturated fats, and consume no more than 10% of their total calories from saturated fats, with 1% or less being trans-fatty acids.
Which fats are unhealthy?
Nutritionist Michelle Routhenstein, who was not involved in the WHO updates, said: “Before, it was just generally ‘limit fat to 30% of energy intake’.
“Now, we’re really looking at saturated fat being a culprit in cardiovascular disease development because it’s directly correlated with an increase in LDL and in insulin resistance, which are cardiometabolic risk factors,” she said.
The WHO highlights the unhealthiness of saturated fatty acids consumed in dairy foods and fatty meat. Butter, ghee, lard, palm oil and coconut oil also contain saturated fats.
Trans-fatty acids come primarily from industrially produced sources and animals like cows, sheep, and goats.
The new publications offer guidance on how people can replace unhealthy saturated fats and trans-fatty acids with polyunsaturated fatty acids and monounsaturated fatty acids from plant sources.
Carbs, fruits, and vegetables
For carbohydrates, a similar shift in perspective is evident in the new guidelines, which now emphasise eating foods containing natural fibre such as whole grains, pulses and vegetables.
While the WHO has long recommended that adults eat 400g a day of vegetables and fruits, for the first time, the publications add guidelines for children as well, and emphasise children’s need for fibre.
“The obesity epidemic we’re seeing in kids is what’s driving (the WHO’s new emphasis),” said paediatrician Dr Daniel Ganjian, who is not affiliated with the WHO.
“The younger you start with healthy nutrition and healthy eating, the more likely (children) are to be healthier the rest of their lives”.
He referred specifically to avoiding the development of high blood pressure, high cholesterol, even certain cancers, as well as diabetes.
“To prevent cardiovascular disease, we need to focus on the earlier generation, because that’s where it starts. We need to be looking from a prevention standpoint versus a treatment standpoint.”
WHO carbs 1WHO carbs 2
WHO carbs weight
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