Four Burning Questions for Professor Emerita Harriet V.Kuhnlein, Commissioner, Lancet Report on Obesity

The Lancet commission on Obesity published a report today on the joint pandemics of obesity, undernutrition, and climate change. In the report, the commissioners point to the fact that malnutrition in all its forms, including undernutrition and obesity, is by far the biggest cause of ill-health and premature death globally. Excess body weight affects 2 billion people worldwide, 2 billion people suffer from micronutrient deficiency, and both are expected to be made significantly worse by climate change.

Leaders must take a hard line against powerful commercial interests and rethink global economic incentives within the food system in order to tackle the joint pandemics of obesity, undernutrition and climate change, according to a major new report by the Lancet Commission on Obesity. A key recommendation from the Commission is the call to establish a new global treaty on food systems to limit the political influence of Big Food.

Harriet Kuhnlein, Professor Emerita, McGill University’s School of Human Nutrition and Founding Director of the Centre for Indigenous Peoples’ Nutrition and Environment was one of the commissioners of the report.

Read the story McGill Newsroom. View the report Lancet Commission on Obesity.