Nutrition Connect (NC) works for enhancing public and private sector actors’ engagement on priority areas for ensuring healthier diets; one of which is on Workforce Nutrition. This April-May, NC champions the campaign "Good Health, Good Work: Prioritising Workforce Nutrition". The campaign resonates with a key time of the year when key global observances in April-May celebrate the worker and draw focus to the importance of good health and welfare of workers and employees with better diets, good working conditions and environments that contribute to improved bottom lines ultimately as well.
This campaign coincides with 7 April, World Health Day (Theme -'My health, my right,' emphasizes the fundamental right of individuals to access comprehensive health services, including quality nutrition, safe water, and clean air, underlining the necessity for good health as a foundation for leading a productive and fulfilled lives); 28 April, the World Day for Safety and Health at Work aims to highlight occupational safety (The theme stresses the impact of climate change on working conditions); and May 1, Labour Day focusing on the achievements and contributions of workers and spreading awareness on the rights and opportunities for labor for their welfare and betterment.
Around the world, the right to health of millions is increasingly coming under threat with crisis, conflict and climate change. Diseases and disasters loom large as causes of death and disability. Conflicts are devastating lives, causing death, pain, hunger and psychological distress. The burning of fossil fuels is simultaneously driving the climate crisis and jeopardising clean air, with indoor and outdoor air pollution claiming a life every 5 seconds. The WHO Council on the Economics of Health for All has found that at least 140 countries recognize health as a human right in their constitution. Yet countries are not passing and putting into practice laws to ensure their populations are entitled to access health services. This can have alarming consequences, when coupled with the fact that at least 4.5 billion people — more than half of the world’s population — were not fully covered by essential health services in 2021.
By aligning the "Good Health, Good Work" campaign with these global observances, Nutrition Connect emphasizes the criticality of nutrition in maintaining workforce health and safety and aligns with international efforts to promote holistic health rights and climate-aware occupational safety. The campaign serves as a call to action for public and private sectors to prioritize and invest in workforce nutrition as a cornerstone of global health and safety initiatives.
4-PILLAR FRAMEWORK FOR BETTER WORKFORCE NUTRITION:
The campaign of Nutrition Connect will focus on a 4-pillar framework that also resonates with the workforce nutrition programme for GAIN and partners, and includes:
- Access to healthy food
- Breastfeeding support
- Nutrition-related health checks with follow up dietary counselling, and
- Nutrition education