Could Nutritious Food Become More Accessible In Guernsey?

Thursday, 7 March 2024 14:10

The accessibility and affordability of nutritious food in Guernsey will be the focus of a new study.

The Health Improvement Commission has partnered with the University of Cambridge to 'map' Guernsey's food system.

30 local stakeholders have gathered to provide evidence for the project today (7 March).

They come from a wide range of sectors, including retail, farming and government.

The results will help inform the Commission’s future initiatives and Public Health's policy priorities in relation to healthy nutrition.

Dr Simon Sebire from The Health Improvement explains how visualising the process could help the community:

"We know that what we eat is a really key factor in our health, and we know that our eating behaviour and our choices are really shaped by our surroundings.

So that's what is available, affordable, promoted and so forth.

Being able to map all those different elements which shape our food system enables us to identify the possible things that we could change about it in order to help us access nutritious and affordable food."

He adds that Guernsey has unique challenges:

"We are an island, we import a lot of what we eat.

There are all sorts of factors that interrelate with one another, and understanding how they work within a system, and if you change one part of that system, what happens elsewhere in that system, is really important if we are going to find sustainable ways to make it easier to access healthier food."