Argentina in the Latin American context: food consumption, health and nutritional policies

Overweight and obesity, two of the planetary nutritional disorders, can also affect populations from developing countries. In Argentina, similarly to the majority of countries of Latin-America and the Caribbean, excess weight problems affect more than a half of adult population (FAO, OPS, OMS. 2017. 2016 America Latina y el Caribe. Panorama de la seguridad alimentaria y nutricional, Sistemas alimentarios sostenible para poner fin al hambre y a la malnutricion. Santiago de Chile (Chile): Organizacion de las Naciones Unidas para la Alimentacion y la Agricultura y la Organizacion Panamericana de la Salud. Available from http://www.fao.org/3/a-i6747s.pdf), and more seriously, coexist together with nutritional deficiencies. This paper explores the evolution of both dietary intake and public action in Argentina, in the light of global change and local economic and social instability. This analysis is made in the context of Latin-America and gives special attention to lipids. The first part is dedicated to the evolution of nutritional situation of Argentinian population and their food intake, including lipids. The second part presents the evolutions of political actions related to food and nutrition developed in Argentina; it provides special focus on pioneering and successful public action to diminish the quantity of industrially produced trans fatty acids in food. The third part addresses a general non-exhaustive panorama of Latin-American nutritional situation, presents food consumption models evolution and discusses food and nutrition policies implemented in the region, including the combat against trans fatty acids.