This FAO evidence platform provides evidence and tools to support governments and stakeholders in the implementation of the Voluntary Guidelines on Food Systems and Nutrition (VGFSyN) of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS).
To find relevant documents for a VGFSyN recommendation, select a focus area from the left menu and the sub-focus area of your interest. You will be redirected to a page listing all relevant VGFSyN recommendations. Select a recommendation to access the links to the relevant online documents
Focus Area V
People-centered nutrition knowledge, education and information
This focus area outlines the policy entry points to promote healthy diets through supporting people to improve their knowledge, awareness, education, and the quality of information available, motivations, skills and sustainable practices empowering key actors. It provides guidance on: utilizing policies and tools to provide education and information on healthy diets and sustainable food systems; encouraging local food knowledge and culture; and promoting “hubs” for food and nutrition knowledge, education and information.
3.5.1 Utilizing policies and tools to provide education and information on healthy diets and sustainable food systems
The four digit numbering of each recommendation follows the numbering in the VGFSyN, whereby the first digit represents the chapter 3 of the document that includes the 105 recommendations, the second digit the focus area, the third digit the sub-focus
area and the letter the specific recommendation.
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Recommendation 3.5.1.a
Governments, in cooperation with scientific institutions, should support and develop, where appropriate, evidence-based food-based dietary guidelines for different age groups and people with special dietary requirements that define context-specific healthy diets by taking into account social, cultural, ancestral, scientific, economic, traditional, ecological, geographical and environmental drivers. It is also important to invest, where appropriate, in public health nutrition tools to improve nutrition education and promote healthy diets and sustainable food systems.
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Recommendation 3.5.1.b
Governments should take approaches that reduce the impact on children of inappropriate marketing of foods and non-alcoholic beverages as recommended in resolution [World Health Assembly] WHA 63.14, in accordance with relevant multilaterally agreed rules and national legislation, where applicable and safeguarding for the identification and management of potential conflicts of interest. Such measures could include, where appropriate, regulation on selling and advertising such food near schools, and child-care facilities, where necessary.
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Recommendation 3.5.1.c
Governments and other stakeholders should protect, promote and support exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months and continued breastfeeding with appropriate complementary feeding up to two years and beyond, as well as encourage the establishment of milk banks and protect and support breastfeeding for working mothers, supporting and promoting maternity protection and paid parental leave.
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Recommendation 3.5.1.d
Governments should implement measures or national mechanisms related to the marketing of commercial infant formula and other breast milk substitutes aimed at giving effect to the International Code of Marketing of Breast-Milk Substitutes(*1), as well as other [World Health Organization] WHO evidence-based recommendations, where applicable, in line with national legislations. Governments should monitor and continue to assess the impact of their measures.
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Recommendation 3.5.1.e
Governments should promote and support science and evidence-based food and nutrition labelling, including considering diverse science and evidence-based [front-of-pack labelling] FOPL schemes, (which could include interpretive and informative labelling(*1)), to support healthy diets. Food labelling should include safeguards for the identification and management of potential conflicts of interest and be aligned with national public health and nutrition policies and food regulations. The objective of nutrition labelling, is to allow consumers to identify the amount of nutrients in products correctly. Interpretive labelling including FOPL, should allow consumers to quickly and easily identify nutrients in the interest of public health.
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Recommendation 3.5.1.f
Governments should develop policies to encourage private sector to produce more nutritious foods and design food outlets, including markets, restaurants, and other places where food is sold or served, that encourage the placement of safe and nutritious and sustainably produced foods that contribute to healthy diets.
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Recommendation 3.5.1.g
Governments, intergovernmental organizations, private sector, civil society and nongovernmental organizations and other relevant stakeholders, including medical and health practitioners, should promote the integration of science-based nutrition education and counseling practices in different settings, with safeguards for the identification and management of potential conflicts of interest, including for populations participating in maternal and child nutrition programmes and information programmes based on food-based dietary guidelines, and other policies related to food systems. The inclusion of nutrition education and information within agriculture extension technical packages should be considered as a way to support producers in increasing the production of nutritious foods.
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Recommendation 3.5.1.h
Governments, intergovernmental organizations, private sector, civil society and nongovernmental organizations and other relevant stakeholders, including medical and health practitioners, should promote a range of activities such as social and behavior change communication (SBCC), food and nutrition education, interpersonal communication and community dialogues, and social marketing initiatives to promote breastfeeding, indigenous and traditional food cultures as a way to positively influence knowledge, attitudes and social norms, and coordinate messaging on nutrition and sustainable consumption and production across a variety of communication channels to reach multiple levels of society (e.g. mass media campaigns).
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Recommendation 3.5.1.i
Governments, intergovernmental organizations, civil society, private sector and other relevant stakeholders should support the education of all food system actors to prioritize the reduction of food loss and waste. Actions could include awareness campaigns at national, regional and global levels, food date labelling, and monitoring of food loss and waste.