Affordability and Obesity: Issues in the Multifunctionality of Agricultural/Food Systems

The conference discussed public goods and externalities created as by-products of the food system, including local development, obesity, air and water pollution, climate change, antibiotic resistance, and other public health issues. Multifunctionality is a framework that integrates these diverse issues and has been influential in international policy. This commentary focuses on arguably the most prominent public health issue at the moment: obesity. Though obesity could be considered another multifunctional dimension, its link to other conference topics is tenuous. Using obesity as an argument to promote local produce or achieve other multifunctional outcomes is very questionable. Framing obesity as an issue of poverty or food insecurity trivializes the continuing major problem of hunger worldwide.