The NZ food systems need major transformations to deliver on human health, ecological health, social equity, and economic prosperity. What needs to happen to proactively re-orient existing systems to cope with climate change, the food insecurity of shocks like pandemics, and the unrelenting obesity epidemic? Multi-sector moves are underway in NZ and internationally ahead of the UN Food Systems Summit later in 2021 to reimagine this future and to define the game-changing solutions needed. Boyd Swinburn shares his views on the process to develop a national food strategy and how the public health workforce can influence this.
Presenter: Professor Boyd Swinburn
Boyd Swinburn is Professor of Population Nutrition and Global Health in the School of Population Health, University of Auckland. He trained as an endocrinologist but is now a public health physician and conducts research on community and policy actions to prevent childhood and adolescent obesity, and reduce, what he has coined, the ‘obesogenic’ food environment.
He is Co-Chair of World Obesity’s Policy & Prevention section and Co-Chair of the Lancet Commission on Obesity. He established the World Health Organisation’s first Collaborating Centre for Obesity Prevention, at Deakin University in Melbourne and has also contributed to over 30 WHO consultations and reports on obesity. He leads an international network (INFORMAS) in over 30 countries to monitor and benchmark the healthiness of food environments and the implementation of food policies and actions to reduce obesity.