BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC) — Two international agencies says it is becoming “increasingly unlikely” that hunger will be eradicated in Latin America and the Caribbean by 2030.

The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the world’s oldest international public health agency working to improve the health and well-being of people in the Americas and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), said that hunger has increased in six countries and now affects 2.4 million people in the region.

They said that the total number of individuals that suffer from hunger in Latin America and the Caribbean has increased, reversing decades of progress, while overweight affects all age groups in men and women, and constitutes a major health problem in all countries in the region of the Americas.

PAHO and FAO have published a new study titled “Panorama of Food Security and Nutrition in Latin America and the Caribbean 2017” which also highlights that after many years of gradual progress, in 2016, approximately 42.5 million persons did not have enough food for their daily caloric needs.

This is an increase of 2.4 million people, six per cent more of the undernourished population than the year before.

FAO Regional Representative, Julio Berdegué, said if this trend does not change “it will be very difficult for the region to reach Sustainable Development Goal 2 on eradicating hunger and malnutrition by 2030”.

While hunger levels remain low in Latin America and the Caribbean in comparison to the rest of the world, there are signs that the situation is getting worse, especially in South America, where hunger grew from five per cent in 2015 to 5.6 per cent in 2016, the PAHO/FAO added.

“We are heading along a bad path. The region has taken a significant step backwards in a fight that it was winning. We cannot tolerate the current levels of hunger and obesity, as they will paralyse the entire Latin American and Caribbean generation”, warned Berdegué.

The international agencies noted that only a few decades ago, regional governments joined forces to fight against acute malnutrition, chronic malnutrition and micronutrient deficiency, and now they must also fight against overweight and obesity.

“While malnutrition persists in the region, especially amongst vulnerable populations, it is now accompanied by overweight and obesity, affecting women more than anyone and also children”, said PAHO Director, Dr Carissa F Etienne.

“The region faces a double burden of malnutrition, to fight against it, we must ensure access to a balanced diet and tackle the primary social factors that cause malnutrition, such as, the lack of access to healthy foods that are low in sugar, salt and fat, to water and sanitation, to education and health services and to social protection programmes, amongst others”, the Dominica-born Dr Etienne added.

To address this situation, FAO and PAHO call on countries to transform their food systems in order to stop the advancement of hunger and malnutrition, paying special attention to the condition of the most vulnerable people, homes and territories.

The publication highlights that only through a great regional effort can the current trend be reversed, to return on the path that made Latin America and the Caribbean a global example of the fight against hunger and malnutrition.

Despite the fact that hunger increased in six countries and fell in 21, the absolute number of people suffering from hunger has increased.

The worse situation in terms of prevalence of hunger is in Haiti, where 47% of the population, that is approximately five million people, suffer from hunger. This number represents almost two-thirds of all undernourishment across countries of the Caribbean.

Although hunger at the regional level has increased, 21 countries of the region have lowered their level of undernourishment, including the Caribbean and Mesoamerican as a whole, between 2013/2015 and 2014/2016.

In Brazil, Cuba and Uruguay, the prevalence of undernourishment is less than 2.5 per cent, while in Argentina, Barbados, Chile, Mexico and Trinidad and Tobago it is below five per cent.

Regarding overweight and obesity the two organisations note that they affect all age groups in men and women, and is a public health problem in all countries of the Americas.

The publication notes that in South America, 7.4 per cent (2.5 million) of the children under five years of age suffer from overweight and obesity, equivalent to six per cent of the children in Central America and 6.9 per cent of the children in the Caribbean.

“Furthermore, a third of the adolescents, and two thirds of the adults suffer from overweight and obesity, women being the most affected,” the publication noted, adding that while acute malnutrition has been practically eliminated from children under five years old in the region, there are already 11 per cent suffering from chronic malnutrition and seven per cent suffering from overweight.

“Nowadays, it is easy to find homes with one malnourished child and an overweight mother, or a chronically malnourished and overweight child or one with a vitamin and mineral deficiency”, Dr Etienne said.

She highlighted that “the consumption of over processed products is directly related to the increase in the prevalence of overweight and obesity, as well as non-communicable diseases. It is in this area that we must intensify our efforts at the country level to help people to have access to healthy food”.