World Consumer Rights Day
World Consumer Rights Day is celebrated on March 15 each year since 1983.
Several member organizations of Consumers International, recognized by the United Nations (UN), are contributing to the organization of this event, which constitutes a major event for citizen mobilization in the protection and promotion of consumer rights throughout the world. This organization also participates in the work of the Codex Alimentarius.
The International Consumer Association has 240 organizations, representing 120 countries. It has regional offices in Europe (London), Asia-Pacific (Kuala-Lampur), Latin America-Caribbean (Santiago) and Africa (Harare).
For the year 2015, World Consumer Rights Day will be celebrated under the generic theme with reference to “consumer rights to healthy food”. Poor diet is linked to four of the ten leading causes of death worldwide: overweight and obesity, high blood pressure, high blood sugar and high cholesterol. Obesity alone is estimated to cost two trillion dollars a year. It’s really time the world woke up to the cost of unhealthy food products.
This is why the international consumer association decided to make helping consumers choose a healthy diet the theme of World Consumer Day (WCRD 2015).
The increase in diet-related diseases such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease and certain cancers represents a major international public health crisis. The number of overweight and obese people continues to increase and, to date, not a single country has managed to reverse this “harmful” trend.
The impact of poor diet on health now exceeds that of smoking. The impact of obesity on global GDP is equivalent to the cost of war, armed violence and terrorism, it is a problem that affects consumers in developed countries but also developing countries, with alarming and rapid proportions in the southern hemisphere.
Consumers and consumer choices are key to solving this problem. The availability and accessibility of unhealthy foods, the marketing practices of large international food companies and the lack of information available to consumers make choosing a healthy diet very difficult.
The 2015 World Day will be used to launch an appeal to the WHO to develop an international convention to protect and promote healthy diets, using a mechanism similar to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which has undoubtedly contributed to reducing deaths caused by smoking.
Several member organizations of Consumers International, recognized by the United Nations (UN), are contributing to the organization of this event, which constitutes a major event for citizen mobilization in the protection and promotion of consumer rights throughout the world. This organization also participates in the work of the Codex Alimentarius.
The International Consumer Association has 240 organizations, representing 120 countries. It has regional offices in Europe (London), Asia-Pacific (Kuala-Lampur), Latin America-Caribbean (Santiago) and Africa (Harare).
For the year 2015, World Consumer Rights Day will be celebrated under the generic theme with reference to “consumer rights to healthy food”. Poor diet is linked to four of the ten leading causes of death worldwide: overweight and obesity, high blood pressure, high blood sugar and high cholesterol. Obesity alone is estimated to cost two trillion dollars a year. It’s really time the world woke up to the cost of unhealthy food products.
This is why the international consumer association decided to make helping consumers choose a healthy diet the theme of World Consumer Day (WCRD 2015).
The increase in diet-related diseases such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease and certain cancers represents a major international public health crisis. The number of overweight and obese people continues to increase and, to date, not a single country has managed to reverse this “harmful” trend.
The impact of poor diet on health now exceeds that of smoking. The impact of obesity on global GDP is equivalent to the cost of war, armed violence and terrorism, it is a problem that affects consumers in developed countries but also developing countries, with alarming and rapid proportions in the southern hemisphere.
Consumers and consumer choices are key to solving this problem. The availability and accessibility of unhealthy foods, the marketing practices of large international food companies and the lack of information available to consumers make choosing a healthy diet very difficult.
The 2015 World Day will be used to launch an appeal to the WHO to develop an international convention to protect and promote healthy diets, using a mechanism similar to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which has undoubtedly contributed to reducing deaths caused by smoking.