Milk-and-Dairy-Products-in-Human-Nutrition-FAO

1
Chapter 1
Introduction
Ellen Muehlhoff 1 , Anthony Bennett 2 and Deirdre McMahon 3
1 Senior Nutrition Officer, Nutrition Division, Food and Agriculture Organization
of the United Nations (FAO), Rome, Italy; 2 Livestock Industry Officer, Agro-food
Industries Group, Rural Infrastructure and Agro-Industries Division, FAO, Rome,
Italy; 3 Nutrition Consultant, Nutrition Division, FAO, Rome, Italy
This book focuses on the role of milk and dairy in human nutrition and development.
It takes a broad view of food systems from producer to consumer and explores the
linkages between dairy-industry development, food security, human nutrition
and health.
This chapter provides the global nutrition context in which this book was
prepared, including current trends in malnutrition, and presents an overview of the
main issues and topics that are discussed.
1.1 Nutrition and health
Good nutrition and access to an adequate diet and health are essential for child
growth and development, body maintenance and protection from both infectious
and non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in adult life. Adequate nutrition and a
healthy productive population are increasingly recognized not only as resulting from
but also as an important prerequisite for poverty reduction and economic and social
development. Improvements in family diets and children’s nutritional status globally
are thus imperative for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
related to the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger (MDG 1) and increasing
child survival (MDG 4). Given evidence that children’s nutrition affects their health,
intelligence and educational performance and their economic status in adulthood,
reducing childhood malnutrition also influences achievement of the MDGs related to
universal primary education, gender equality and women’s empowerment, improvements
of maternal health and fighting human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
1.2 Progress in nutrition outcomes
1.2.1 Undernourishment
The latest FAO estimates indicate that significant progress has been made in reducing
undernourishment in the world during the last 20 years (FAO, IFAD and WFP,
2012). During the period 2010–12, a total of 870 million people did not have access
to sufficient dietary energy and were chronically undernourished, 132 million fewer
than in 1990. The vast majority of these – 852 million – live in developing countries.
The results imply that the target of halving the proportion of people who suffer
from hunger by 2015 (relative to the proportion suffering from hunger in 1990)