368On November 25, 2021, the Public Health Center and the NGO “LIFE” held a round table on “Reducing the consumption of trans fats and legislative regulation of their content in food” with disease control and prevention centers (DCPC’s) representatives.
Given the study results “Thoughts and views of the population of Ukraine on trans fats”, conducted by KIIS in September this year, the round table discussed the possibilities and the need to limit the use of trans fats in the food industry in Ukraine.
The full analytical report of KIIS “Thoughts and views of the population of Ukraine on trans fats” is available at:
http://kiis.com.ua/materials/pr/20211021_trance/AReport-Trans-Fats-Sept2021.pdf .
When buying food in a store, a citizen of Ukraine must be sure of their safety and health – all participants of the meeting agreed with this desire. Next, the main focus was on measures to limit the consumption of trans fats by Ukrainians. Restricting the content of trans fatty acids in food at the legislative level is the most effective way to reduce the incidence and mortality of Ukrainians from diseases caused by the consumption of trans fats, namely cardiovascular diseases, including coronary heart disease. However, the legislative restriction is one of the six measures recommended by the WHO. Representatives of both the PHC and the DCPC agreed that informing the public about the health risks of trans fats before introducing legal restrictions, cooperation with producers and control bodies, monitoring, etc., are effective and necessary measures to protect public health.
PHC presented a set of events (training seminars, short regular publications on social networks for the Days of Health, and other occasions) on the organization of information campaigns in favor of healthy eating and lifestyle for Ukrainians and called on DCPC to conduct such campaigns and inform producers about further regulation of trans fats.
The discussion was attended by:
- Andriy Skipalskyi – WHO specialist on risk factors for non-communicable diseases;
- Vladyslav Zbanatsky – Deputy General Director of the Public Health Center of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine;
- Iryna Soroka – Head of the Department of Behavioral Risk Factors of the Public Health Center of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine;
- Oleh Dudin – Chief Specialist in Behavioral Risk Factors of the Public Health Center of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine;
- Dmytro Kupyra – Executive Director of the NGO LIFE;
- Valeria Siemkova – media contact of the NGO LIFE.
The event took place on the PHC’s online platform. PHC’s and DCPC’s representatives of Sumy, Donetsk, Zaporizhia, Kherson, Dnipro, Lviv, Luhansk, Kharkiv, Ternopil, Kharkiv, Zhytomyr, Odesa, Chernihiv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Mykolayiv regions also took part.
For reference: NGO LIFE, together with the Public Health Center, are implementing a project from Resolve to Save Lives at the initiative of Vital Strategies to support measures aimed at eliminating trans fats and harmful food additives in Ukraine.
Consumption of artificially produced trans fats, which are found in cakes, cookies, biscuits, packaged foods, cooking oils, and spreads, leads to the deaths of more than half a million people worldwide each year.