Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | A coalition of civil society organizations advocating for food justice has called on authorities to as we roar ban the sale of junk food in college canteens. The inquire of, portion of a five-point charm, also involves pressing approval of the draft Nutrient Profiling Mannequin (NPM), enhanced public awareness of unhealthy diets, regulations of advertising and marketing and marketing focused on kids, and mobilization of stakeholders—fogeys, media, and faculties—to shift consumption patterns.
In a joint assertion, SEATINI-Uganda, the Heart for Food and Ample Living Rights (CEFROHT), CONSENT-Uganda, and FIAN-Uganda warned of an alarming upward thrust in diet-related non-communicable ailments—much like belly ulcers, diabetes, most cancers, and heart disease—in particular amongst college-age kids resulting from unregulated food environments.
“We’re going to no longer continue feeding our young of us poison and talk to it like. It’s miles a behind and quiet manner of killing them,” the assertion learn. David Kabanda, Government Director of CEFROHT, warned that failing to trot the Nutrient Profiling Mannequin would violate the Structure.
“Authorities, in particular Ministry of Effectively being officers, will doubtless be in violation of the Structure if they fail or fail to see the urgency in passing the Nutrient Profiling Mannequin or guidance on classification of food and vitamins of severe roar,” stated Kabanda. Jane Nalunga, Government Director of SEATINI-Uganda, cautioned that if contemporary trends persist, the nation risks undermining national food security, diet, sustainability, and socio-financial pattern. Uganda is already feeling the burden of the disaster.
In accordance to the Uganda Demographic Effectively being Surveys (DHS), 5% of kids under five are overweight or obese. Among college-feeble kids (3–16 years), obesity stands at 32.3%, with yet some other 21.7% classified as overweight. Non-communicable ailments now sage for roughly 33% of all deaths in Uganda.
Henry Kimera, Government Director of CONSENT-Uganda, highlighted the aggressive advertising and marketing and marketing focused on kids. “There would possibly well be at the 2nd a surely aggressive, but bad nature of advertising and marketing and marketing to kids. Vivid packaging, catchy jingles, and TV adverts on kids’s programs and online platforms assemble these foods see stress-free and engaging, but surely, fairly a spread of them are bad when consumed most frequently,” Kimera stated.
The CSOs renowned that prices for unhealthy foods and sugary beverages have dropped to as miniature as UGX 500, making them broadly accessible. Marketers are using emotional and social charm to steer kids and kids. Professor Achileo Kaaya from Makerere University’s Division of Food Expertise and Food regimen emphasised the urgency of food security awareness.
“We now have to endure in mind that food can surely abolish you, despite the very fact that it’s miles imagined to preserve our lives,” he stated. Kaaya cited a host of hazards in food—biological, bodily, and chemical—warning against extremely-processed foods rich in trans fat, salt, and free sugars.
“These vitamins, in decision to protecting your body, finish up harming it. Ultra-processing removes natural elements and provides bad ones cherish sugar, salt, and stout—in particular in the roughly food consumed heavily by kids,” he added. Kaaya also expressed roar about early publicity to unhealthy diets in pre-college-feeble kids.
“On this closing date of us start up taking kids to school as early as two years. Who appears to be like to be at the quality of the food given to them? Ceaselessly, it’s miles food high in stout or sugar. Science has already proved that they would possibly be able to even be detrimental. Let us no longer give our young of us foods high in free sugar, saturated stout, or salt.”
He highlighted prolonged-time interval penalties, including digestive problems cherish constipation and colon most cancers resulting from lack of dietary fibre in many subtle foods much like Grade 1 maize flour. “Accurate child feeding is a shared responsibility amongst fogeys, policy makers, researchers, and extension officers,” Kaaya stated.
The CSOs linked the upward thrust of a sleek stress, Style 5 diabetes, to persisted publicity to extremely-processed foods and obesogenic environments. They argued that authorities’s Shs 11.4 trillion allocation to the Human Capital Construction Programme in the 2025/26 budget needs to be matched with stronger regulations of food advertising and marketing and marketing and college canteens.
Rehema Namaganda, Government Director of FIAN Uganda Chapter, decried the absence of a national framework law on food and diet. “The Ministry of Effectively being will have to give Ugandans this ‘food classification instrument’. It’ll consist of all non-sugar sweeteners and bad additives. Nutrient profiling enables of us to assemble told decisions and discourages consumption of bad products,” Namaganda stated.
The CSOs entreated Uganda to emulate countries cherish Chile, Mexico, South Africa, and the UK, which have launched successful food policies much like sugar taxes, advertising and marketing and marketing bans, and entrance-of-pack warning labels. In Chile, for occasion, sugary drink purchases dropped by 23.7%, and childhood obesity rates have stabilized.
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