Food Security Summit

Baroness Jenkin of Kennington Excerpts

Wednesday 25th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

All these factors interlink. The fragility of some of these countries feeds into their problems in terms of food, and that is clearly the case in the Sahel, where the United Kingdom is supporting the feeding of 400,000 people. We are well aware of how these things interlink and I am sure that that will be part of the discussions at this event.

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington]

I welcome this initiative as an important part of the legacy of the Games, but is my noble friend aware that the number of obese people globally is approximately the same as the number of those who are malnourished, hungry or stunted? While the latter group is, thankfully, reducing in number, partly because of well-targeted aid, the number of obese people is growing exponentially, with enormous additional costs in relation to health and health services internationally.

[Baroness Northover]

That is why it is extremely important that we support education. That is what we do, as can be seen in, for example, Bangladesh. Although here we are addressing the need to reduce undernutrition, obviously the rise in the incidence of obesity that my noble friend has just flagged up is also a concern, although not among the same populations. It is extremely important that education is supported so that people can address both those areas.