12.6 WHA71 Maternal, infant and young child nutrition – WMA

THE WORLD MEDICAL ASSOCIATION, INC.
L’ASSOCIATION MEDICALE MONDIALE, INC
ASOCIACION MEDICA MUNDIAL, INC
Centre International de Bureaux
Immeuble A «Keynes» Website : www.wma.net Postal Address :
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01210 FERNEY-VOLTAIRE Fax : (33) 4 50 40 59 37 01210 FERNEY-VOLTAIRE Cedex
France E-mail address : wma@wma.net France
71st
World Health Assembly
12.6 Maternal, infant and young children nutrition
May 2018
Honourable Chairperson, Distinguished Delegates,
Thank you for the opportunity to speak on behalf of the World Medical Association, which
represents more than 9 million physicians around the world.
Addressing maternal, infant and child nutrition is crucial to ensure physical and mental health and
wellbeing of future generations. Given the environmental and climate challenges threats on food
security, the need to accelerate our efforts to end maternal and child malnutrition by 2030 and build
sustainable food systems is stronger than ever. We consider that we will not be able to successfully
achieve the sustainable development goals without tackling maternal and child nutrition as a
platform for women’s empowerment, access to health care, education and employment.
We would like to welcome WHO’s efforts in monitoring and supporting the progress made in
carrying out the comprehensive plan on maternal, infant and young child nutrition namely toward
global target 1 (stunting). Further efforts and actions are needed to address other global targets
namely childhood overweight, anemia and wasting through intersectoral collaboration. We ask the
WHO to advocate for the inclusion of diverse stakeholders in food policy and programme design
creating innovative win-win solutions.
We also call for legislation mandating the ingredients in foods and beverages to be clearly labeled.
Additionally, controls should be put in place to limit the number of establishments selling food of
low nutritional quality and promote better access to nutritious healthy food.
We urge Member States, with support from the WHO secretariat, to establish clear guidelines and
regulatory infrastructure for multimedia marketing techniques, without input or pressure from the
food and drink industry.
We, as WMA, offer our technical support through our National Medical Associations to train and
empower physicians with the required knowledge and skills to improve maternal, infant and child
nutrition.
Thank you,