The European Week of Sport is all about promoting healthy lifestyles across Europe. In this context, the food industry plays a crucial role and businesses should realise the potential in collaborating with policy-makers to make Europeans live healthier lives, writes Chenoa Geerts
Obesity levels in Europe have soared in recent years, which is why tackling this issue has become one the EU’s main public health priorities. At this year’s European Week of Sport (EWoS) opening event in Tartu, Estonia, the Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, Vytenis Andriukaitis, highlighted what the EU has done so far to address the issue of obesity, and made a passionate call for future action to promote healthy lifestyles across the bloc.
In his EWoS address, Commissioner Andriukaitis highlighted the Commission’s aim to support Member States in implementing an Action Plan to address childhood obesity. He also vowed to continue working with Member States to reduce the levels of sugar, salt and fat in supermarket products and make healthy foods more affordable. The Commissioner also specifically addressed the Estonian Government (that will lead policy discussions during its Presidency of the Council of the EU) to highlight the Commission’s proposal on Audio-visual Media Services, which restricts children’s exposure to marketing of foods high in fat, sugar or salt. All these measures have a significant impact on the food industry, ranging from their marketing practices to their products’ composition, and provides the opportunity, as well as challenges, of working with policy-makers to tackle this major public health problem.
The EWoS brings together national and local governments, sports federations, schools and universities, academics and health networks to exchange ideas on how to make EU citizens more physically active. Even though the industry is not directly involved in this event, it is crucial for food businesses to engage with these activities and support the EU’s public health objectives.
This year’s EWoS, taking place from 22-30 September, was focused on the endorsement of the “Tartu Call For A Healthy Lifestyle”. Commissioner Andriukaitis, came together with Commissioners Navracsics (Education, Culture, Youth and Sport) and Hogan (Agriculture and Rural Development) to sign this 15-point action plan that sets-out measures for the Commission to take forward over the next two years to promote healthy lifestyles, including promoting the EU school fruit, vegetables and milk scheme that was launched this summer and supporting campaigns on healthy diets.
.. it will be up to the food industry to feed into this process, while constructively contributing to the EU’s fight against obesity and positioning itself as a solution to this public health issue, as opposed to being one of the main causes of it
While the detrimental effects of smoking and alcohol consumption have been emphasised for decades, this plan shows that the focus of policy-makers will now turn towards food and nutrition and physical activity to improve people’s lifestyles. This is why the importance of EU initiatives such as the EWoS to the food industry cannot be understated.
While sports policy is mainly a Member State competence, food legislation mostly derives from Brussels. Commissioner Andriukaitis, who is a cardiovascular surgeon by trade and responsible for this policy area, vowed to continue to address the problem of unhealthy lifestyles in the EU. It is therefore expected he will be looking to introduce more measures in this area over the next few years and it will be up to the food industry to feed into this process, while constructively contributing to the EU’s fight against obesity and positioning itself as a solution to this public health issue, as opposed to being one of the main causes of it.