change

International Youth Day: Building capacity of change agents in transforming food systems

BY LUCKY IHANZA

International Youth Day is commemorated every year on August 12 to raise awareness about the challenges and problems faced by the youth, and to endorse ways of engaging the youth to more actively participate in affirmative contributions to development. This year, the theme is, “Transforming Food Systems: Youth Innovation for Human and Planetary Health,” and the aim is to highlight the indisputable fact that the success of such a global effort is not achievable without the significant contributions of the youth.

As world’s population (currently at 7.7 billion people) has been estimated to increase by 2 billion people in 2050; as young people have continued to play a key role in the management of, and recovery from, the pandemic; as the world suffers other crucial challenges like biodiversity conservation and mitigation of climate change; and with over half of the world’s population under age 30; experts and stakeholders are of the opinion that to ensure ‘human and planetary wellbeing’, there is an urgent need to move away from simply producing a larger volume of healthier food more sustainably, to exploring other options of transforming foods systems for the benefit of humans and the planet.

According to the World Economic Forum, a third of all food produced and the natural resources involved in its production are wasted. “We produce enough food but nearly 1 in 10 people still don’t have sufficient to eat and 3 billion cannot afford a healthy diet. At the same time, we

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Does the app targeting behaviour change really work?

The UK is facing a health crisis, with a majority of citizens failing to eat an adequately healthy diet.

It is estimated that 75% of men and 72% of women do not consume enough fruit and vegetables in their diet, while recommended sugar intake guidelines are exceeded by 100%. Two in every three adults are currently obese or overweight.

As obesity and associated health conditions are recognised as major concerns, researchers are interested in behavioural weight management interventions designed to reduce calorie intake. These range from taxing beverages with high levels of added sugar to providing information about healthy diets.

However, a group of psychologists from the Universities of Exeter and Cardiff in the UK believe unconscious, impulsive psychological processes may play an important role in consumer diets. As a result, the team has developed a computer game that aims to help consumers reduce their intake of unhealthy foods.

Being researchers, they have also conducted a study to determine the effectiveness of the computer app in both lab and real-world experiments. And the results are in.

Putting the brakes on junk food​

The researchers describe their FoodTrainer (FoodT) app as a ‘simple computer game’ capable of training one’s brain to stop consuming unhealthy food and drinks.

By repeatedly playing the game, consumers build up associations between certain foods (such as chocolate) and stopping, which the researchers describe as ‘effectively putting the brakes on your eating behaviour’.

“This won’t stop you from eating these foods completely, but it will give

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