Development of food-based dietary guidelines for the Western Pacific Region
Overview
The Western Pacific Region of the World Health Organization includes East Asia, Oceania and Pacific island nations. The nutrition situation in the Region reflects its enormous geographic, socioeconomic and cultural diversity. Undernutrition is still the most important nutritional problem, with protein-energy malnutrition, and deficiencies in vitamin A, iodine and iron remaining major health problems in many countries. With increasing prosperity and length of life have come new problems such as childhood obesity.
There has been a dramatic increase in the prevalence of chronic noncommunicable diseases, which are now a leading cause of death. Food safety and a changing food supply are important emerging issues, and trends in the Region have generally shown increases in both availability and accessibility.