The Lancet has published The Global Syndemic of Obesity, Undernutrition, and Climate Change: The Lancet Commission report. The key messages:
The pandemics of obesity, undernutrition, and climate change represent three of the gravest threats to human health and survival. These pandemics constitute The Global Syndemic, consistent with their clustering in time and place, interactions at biological, psychological, or social levels, and common, large-scale societal drivers and determinants. Their interactions and the forces that sustain them emphasise the potential for major beneficial effects on planetary health that double-duty or triple-duty actions, which simultaneously act on two or all three of these pandemics, will have.
To mitigate The Global Syndemic, the Commission proposed the following nine broad recommendations, under which sit more than 20 actions:
• Think in Global Syndemic terms to create a focus on common systemic drivers that need common actions.
• Join up the silos of thinking and action to create platforms to work collaboratively on common systemic drivers and double-duty or triple-duty actions.
• Strengthen national and international governance levers to fully implement policy actions which have been agreed upon through international guidelines, resolutions and treaties.
• Strengthen municipal governance levers to mobilise action at the local level and create pressure for national action
• Strengthen civil society engagement to encourage systemic change and pressure for policy action at all levels of government to address The Global Syndemic
• Reduce the influence of large commercial interests in the public policy development process to enable governments to implement policies in the public interest to benefit the health of current and future generations, the environment, and the planet
• Strengthen accountability systems for policy actions to address The Global Syndemic
• Create sustainable and health-promoting business models for the 21st century to shift business outcomes from a short-term profit-only focus to sustainable, profitable models that explicitly include benefits to society and the environment
• Focus research on The Global Syndemic determinants and actions to create an evidence base of systemic drivers and actions, including indigenous and traditional approaches to health and wellbeing
