Youth Call on World to Eat Healthy, Sustainable Diets during Pre-Summit of the UN Food Systems Summit

Partnership for a Healthier America to harness the energy of youth leaders across the country to drive movement forward

July 29, 2021

A globe with red apples ROME, ITALY - Youth leaders from all over the world gathered in Rome this week for the three day Pre-Summit of the United Nations Food Systems Summit and declared their leadership in driving urgent food systems transformation.

“Young people are important to transform the food system because we are half of the world’s population and we are going to be the ones who either suffer or live in a prosperous world in the future,” said Marie-Claire Graf, Youth Activist from Switzerland. "But also young people are very important because we are driving innovation and we are very educated. That’s why we don’t like when people talk ABOUT us, we want them to talk WITH us.”

Against the backdrop of the Pre-Summit, youth leaders laid out a statement of action to advocate for governments to prioritize climate change, accessibility to healthy food, and fair wages for workers in the food industry.

The number one priority in their call to action is changing the world’s diet. “We want to ensure that everyone everywhere has access to healthy, sustainable and resilient food,” according to their call to action. "Youth can make choices everyday to eat more sustainable and nutritious diets and strongly advocate for it within their communities and through social media.”

"The next generation gets it,” said Nancy E. Roman, President & CEO, Partnership for a Healthier America. “There is a big opportunity to change the face of our globe through sustainable, healthy dietary choices enabled by good policy and better business.”

Roman asserts that Partnership for a Healthier America has and will continue working to harness the energy of youth leaders across the country to drive this movement forward.

In October 2020, Partnership for a Healthier America hosted a Food Systems Summit dialogue where dynamic young change makers working across the US food system shared their vision for how we, as a united global community, can meet challenges related to food systems and food equity head-on.

Young people are fully incorporated into leadership positions within the UN Food Systems Summit with the architecture intentionally designed to include young people from around the world. From the five Action Tracks to the Champions Network, young people have played a key part in preparations for the Summit in September.

The UN Food Systems Summit was announced by the UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, on World Food Day last October as a part of the Decade of Action for delivery on the SDGs by 2030. The aim of the Summit is to deliver progress on all 17 of the SDGs through a food systems approach, leveraging the interconnectedness of food systems to global challenges such as hunger, climate change, poverty and inequality. More information about the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit and list of Advisory Committee and Scientific Group members can be found online: https://www.un.org/foodsystemssummit


ABOUT PARTNERSHIP FOR A HEALTHIER AMERICA

The Partnership for a Healthier America (PHA), founded in partnership with Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! campaign in 2010, is the premier national nonprofit working to transform the food landscape in pursuit of health equity. PHA seeks partnerships that have the greatest potential to reduce health disparities. We do this using evidence-based approaches that drive systemic access to better food. In a decade of work, we have partnered with more than 300 corporations, convenience store chains, and distributors, hospitals, early childhood education centers, and SNAP-Ed implementing agencies, among others, in pursuit of our vision that all children grow up healthy and free from obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and other chronic conditions. Information about PHA’s Veggies Early & Often campaign please visit www.ahealthieramerica.org and follow PHA on Twitter @PHAnews.

Media Contact: Meg Orciari, morciari@ahealthieramerica.org