World Food Policy Volume/Issue 2-2/3-1 Fall 2015/Spring 2016 | Page 61

World Food Policy

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

hailand is taking impressive
action to monitor and respond
to increasing overweight and
obesity through the work of the newly
formed National Food Committee
(Chavasit, Kasemsup, and Tontisirin
2013). However, relatively little is known
still about the nutrition and health effects
of evolving food retail environments in
SE Asia, including Thailand, particularly
in relation to the growing health-related
problem of obesity. What is needed is new
and additional information on how food
retail changes affect farm enterprise and
environmental sustainability through
upstream influences on production and
processing and downstream effects on
individuals and households through
food purchasing, diets and related social
practices, according to socio-economic
and other characteristics. Ultimately,
more targeted and more multi-sectorial
policy interventions upstream and
downstream are required.

Western experience suggests that
protecting fresh markets has the potential
to safeguard consumer dietary diversity,
the provision of affordable, accessible
foods and the maintenance of short food
chains and hence the viability of local
food producers. In a rapidly globalizing
world, the shift to supermarkets as
the main purveyors of food has been
described as the supermarket revolution.
It is seen as an inevitable consequence
of globalization and modernization.
However, it is possible for national and
local governments to consciously protect
fresh markets if they are understood as
the food retail component of a nutritionsensitive agricultural system.

This study was part of the Thai Health-Risk
Transition research program supported by
the International Collaborative Research
Grants Scheme with joint grants from
the Wellcome Trust UK (GR071587MA)
and the Australian NHMRC (268055).
We thank the Thai Cohort Study team
for their support without which this work
would not be possible.

T

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