"Everyone Has The Right To Safe And Adequate Food Assistance". Resolution Of European Nutritionists Presented

EFAD, which represents nutritionists from 27 European Union Member States, presented the Budapest Resolution on October 21, a document emphasizing that “everyone has the right to safe and adequate food assistance”. The resolution also underlines that nutritionists have an essential role to play in helping all European citizens to exercise this right.

November 07 –

The European Federation of Dietitian Associations (EFAD), representing dieticians from 27 European countries, presented a professional manifesto at the General Assembly in Budapest: the Budapest Resolution. This manifesto underlines that everyone has the right to adequate food and freedom from hunger in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The resolution strongly recommends that food assistance should be an integral part of food assistance to ensure that no one is left behind. Adequate nutritional support helps prevent and reduce the risk of disease, shorten hospital stays, improve clinical treatment effectiveness and quality of life, leading to reduced healthcare costs. At the same time, food insecurity is associated with depression, reduced productivity and increased health care costs, which can place an enormous socioeconomic burden on the community.

The resolution states that nutritionists are health professionals who have the skills to plan, implement and monitor nutritional treatments in the field of prevention and diet-related diseases. Additionally, the role of dietitians extends beyond healthcare as their commitment to promoting a healthy eating environment for all is also expressed through collaborations with government, industry, academia and research.

The resolution emphasizes that nutritional therapy is an excellent cost-effective investment. The document strongly recommends that nutritional assistance be present in each country’s health systems and in the context of public health. Beyond pure health care, working with nutritionists in any country can bring about effective, equitable and sustainable change in the food sector.

For a healthier population, all European citizens should have access to diet and nutritional support.

EFAD is “strongly committed to improving nutritional health, promoting sustainable diets and reducing health inequalities in Europe. It supports nutritionists to make a positive impact on the nutrition of patients and citizens, and consequently the entire population, improving education and research, as well as the standards of continuing education and professional practice, given the commitment of nutritionists in the creation and implementation of guidelines and care pathways in the field of nutrition, as well as in training in nutrition and dietetics for other health professionals”.

EFAD, the voice of European nutritionists, representing the nutritionists associations and the universities where they are represented and where there are recognized training courses in human and dietary nutrition, calls on policy makers to allocate the right resources to ensure adequate coverage of the Ensuring health services in the health systems of the individual countries.

At the General Assembly, President Annemieke van Ginkel-Res (Netherlands), re-elected for the next four years, reaffirmed her commitment to promoting the goals of the Budapest Resolution during her term of office.

“The Budapest Resolution – declares the ASAND President, Ersilia Troiano – draws the attention of health and social systems, understood in their highest and broadest definition, to fundamental human rights, including the right to nutritional support. It certainly fills us with great pride, but also with careful consideration, that in the face of mounting evidence showing that nutrition is not only an effective investment from an economic point of view, but it is also possible – even and only with ways that are in all realities health services are easily implementable – start guaranteeing some of the right to food assistance that many citizens and patients are denied every day, such as the right to an accurate nutritional risk assessment. ASAND is a proud member of EFAD and together with the National Board of Dietitians of the National Federation of TSRM-PSTRP Orders, strongly supports its commitment to ensure the right to adequate nutritional assistance, also thanks to the activities of nutritionists aimed at improving the quality of professional practice, research and training”.

“The Budapest Resolution – declares the President of the Commission of National Nutritionists of the FNO TSRM PSTRP, Marco Tonelli – would like to draw attention to a well-known situation, underlined several times and never adequately addressed: many hospitals and territorial structures lack health professionals (doctors and nutritionists) dedicated to nutrition, with easily understandable consequences in terms of reduced effectiveness of clinical therapy, longer stays in hospital, take-up of new hospitalizations, etc. In addition, to date, nutrition is still not included in essential assistance, with the consequence that nutritional services are inhomogeneous (or even non-existent) in different regions and an unacceptable Create inequality in access to care. In the pre-pandemic period, the inadequacy of territorial support and the lack of continuity of care between the hospital and the territory were denounced on several occasions: Today, the PNRR’s Mission 6 Health aims to strengthen the territory, the community and neighborhood medicine . The hope is that the resources allocated can also be translated into adequate nutritional assistance, creating a positive synergy between the hospital and the area. Nutritional therapy is safe when administered by a nutritionist, and while inexpensive, the benefits to the individual citizen and to the wider community are significant, as adequate nutritional support reduces overall healthcare costs. For this reason, the Commission of the National Register of Dietitians supports ASAND’s engagement within EFAD and intends to give maximum dissemination to the Budapest Resolution.

The Budapest Resolution is available at the following link: https://www.efad.org/documents/efad-budapest-resolution/. Given the importance of this document, ASAND and the National Board of Dietitians of the FNO TSRM PSTRP oversaw its translation into Italian.