Time: 10:00 - 12:30
Venue: Zoom meeting
World Breastfeeding Week (WBW) is celebrated annually from 1 – 7 August to raise awareness and galvanise action to promote, protect and support breastfeeding. This year’s WBW theme, ‘Step up for Breastfeeding – Educate and Support’ coincides with the release of the WHO exposé on the insidious marketing of infant formula and the violations of the International Code for the Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes. The landmark policy framework was designed to stop commercial interests from damaging breastfeeding rates and endangering the health and nutrition of the world’s youngest inhabitants. In 2012, South Africa gazetted the Regulations Relating to Foodstuff for Infants and Young Children, R911, signalling its commitment to protect, promote and support breastfeeding following the Tshwane Declaration to create a breastfeeding culture in South Africa.
In support of and in celebration of #WBW2022, the upcoming Food Imbizo will focus on “Stepping up: exposing infant formula marketing tactics”, and exploring ways to educate and support breastfeeding mothers. Mothers in South Africa face a social environment that is hostile to breastfeeding. Not breastfeeding means relying on other infant foods, most often commercial and expensive infant formula. But introducing other foods before the age of six months — when infants do not need anything else but breastmilk — is not recommended. WHO and the national Department of Health recommend and promote exclusive breastfeeding for all infants for the first six months of life. Still, one in four infants under the age of six months are fed exclusively with formula and only one in three infants are exclusively breastfed — far from the global target of 50%.
What will it take to improve and strengthen the control of the inappropriate and unethical marketing of infant formula at all levels of government in South Africa?
Register and join us for an interactive session to discuss industry tactics to promote formula and what governance levers exist to curb this influence and promote breastfeeding.
Presenters:
Professor Tanya Doherty (SAMRC)
Dr Chantell Witten (UWC)
Panellists:
Dr Nazeeia Sayed (UWC)
Zukiswa Pikoli (Daily Maverick)
Petronell Kruger (WITS School of Public Health)
Facilitator: Florian Kroll
You can access documents from previous Food Imbizo meetings on the Food Imbizo website.
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Our GOALS
We recognise that producers, processors, distributors and consumers are incorporated into the food system under varying terms and returns. We also recognise the economic, social, human and environmental health impacts associated with food security. Therefore our goal is to conduct research, build capacity and disseminate findings that will promote a sustainable food system in South Africa.
Our MISSION
Our research is concerned with the scale, nature, causes and consequences of food insecurity in South Africa and elsewhere on the African continent. Thus our mission is to investigate products, technologies, processes and policies that can reduce food insecurity and mitigate its negative outcomes. We seek to make a difference to food security by linking innovative science with critical enquiry.