The multiple expressions of malnutrition include overweight and obesity, stunting and wasting, and micronutrient deficiencies, and can contribute to the occurrence of diet-related noncommunicable diseases such as specific cancers, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes. These forms of malnutrition can result from exposure to products, practices, environments, and systems that do not promote healthy eating practices adequately. There is a need for a systematic approach to actions to address malnutrition, according to national context, that include but are not limited to:

a) Promotion, support, and protection of motherhood and of early and exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months, and the continuation of breastfeeding up to 2 years of age or beyond, together with timely and appropriate complementary feeding.

b) Interventions to improve diets tailored specifically to women; encourage and facilitate mothers to breastfeed through maternity leave policies and legislation, workplace lactation locations, counseling, and support, and establish “baby-friendly” hospitals, workplaces, and other settings, and similar initiatives.

c) Interventions to implement and/or strengthen national mechanisms for effective implementation of measures aimed at giving effect to the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes as well as other WHO evidence-based recommendations, keeping in mind the special needs of children and women who cannot breastfeed.

d) Support for timely and adequate complementary feeding, in accordance with the guiding principles for complementary feeding of the breastfed child as well as the guiding principles for feeding of the non-breastfed child, 6-24 months of age; support to continue taking all necessary measures in the interest of public health to implement recommendations to end inappropriate promotion of foods for infants and young children; as well as education to facilitate the adoption of health practices that do not displace breastfeeding or give inappropriate foods to infants.

e) Implementation of policies on food production, supply, safety, and access that are coherent with a healthy diet; establishment of supportive environments, including supporting the role of the family in healthy food shopping, preparation, and consumption.

f) Implementation of policies to create and support the development of healthy eating patterns among children and adolescents by reducing consumption of energy-dense nutrient-poor products, including sugar-sweetened beverages, in alignment with national dietary guidelines and recommendations.

g) Enactment of regulations and policies to protect children and adolescents from the impact of marketing of energy-dense nutrient-poor products, including sugar-sweetened beverages, while implementing education policies and messaging campaigns to improve understanding of healthy eating patterns.

h) Development and implementation of norms for front-of-package labeling with nutrient content information that promotes healthy choices, including allowing for quick and easy identification of energy-dense nutrient-poor products, in alignment with national dietary guidelines and recommendations.

i) Development and implementation of norms and policies to encourage that consumers are provided accurate information regarding the nutrient content of non-packaged foods.

Note: For further details on the scope of this Outcome, please refer to the PAHO Strategic Plan 20-25 Document.