Professor Philip James, who chairs the International Obesity TaskForce, told delegates at a Sydney conference that agricultural subsidies from the US and EU had played a significant role in the current obesity crisis.
"At the moment the whole world is distorted by crazy agricultural policies which have, over a matter of 50 years, essentially caused the heart disease and diabetes and obesity epidemics," Professor James said.
"The over-production of oil, fat and sugar, largely due to government subsidies to protect farm industry revenues, has contributed over decades to the health crisis we have today," he added.
But the recent breakdown of the Doha round of World Trade Organization talks on eliminating trade restrictions offers a new opportunity to radically overhaul farming and food production worldwide.
Professor James and IOTF policy director Neville Rigby believe developing nations in particular are susceptible to the health risks of current farming practices.
"In China, consumption of oils and fat has doubled in only 10 years. There has been a major investment in production capacity of the livestock sector so that the country can deliver meat industrially," Rigby told AP-Foodtechnology.com.
But the fruit and vegetable components in the traditional diet need to be maintained, he added. China is already facing a major diabetes epidemic with obesity rates in children between 7-18 years old increasing four times between 1985 and 2000.
The IOTF is calling on governments to increase their use of the health clauses (phyto-sanitary standards) allowed under World Trade Organization rules to protect people's health.
"Every government has the power to restrict trade when health is at risk. When it comes to bird flu nobody questions the right to use phytosanitary measures. These should also be used when there is a health risk from the long-term consumption of certain products," said Rigby.
However small countries are being forced to accept the import of some unhealthy products for fear of losing trade privileges, argued Professor James.
He cited the example of the Pacific Islands, which had tried to block the import of mutton flaps, a particularly high-fat cut from sheep that is normally discarded, on health grounds.
Studies on the diets of Pacific islanders, where diabetes affects more than 40 per cent of the population in some areas, suggest that mutton flaps are directly related to the rise in obesity but the meat is cheap and the islands are under pressure to conform to free trade practices.
"It is alarming that Australia is now exporting the same mutton flaps to China, a country which is trying desperately to combat a rising level of overweight and obesity in both adults and children," said Professor James.
"China appears to be on the radar as a target market for New Zealand and Australia's exporters. Recently, the Australian meat and livestock association has reported a major increase in the sale of this product to China," added Rigby.
Some countries have had some success in using regulations to control intake of unhealthy food. Denmark has effectively banned trans-fats with the possibility of a two year jail sentence for wilful breaches of the regulations, while in the USA, McDonalds reached a court settlement of more than $8million for failing to honour its pledge to remove harmful trans-fats from its products.
In the developing world too, Ghana has regulated to control the proportion of fat allowed with meat imports to reduce the amount of high-fat products entering the country.
