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Been stuck doin’ uni stuff, so here’s some sketchesssss

And so it all begins again....

Sooo Im baaaack and ready for my second and final internship!

My name is still Simone and I’m still a student at Global Nutrition and Health, with a specialization in Public Health Nutrition and Food Policy at the Metropolitan University in Copenhagen, Denmark.

This time I’m not travelling to Africa instead I have decided to stay in Europe, more specifically Brussels.

My internship place will be at the European Public Health Alliance (EPHA). EPHA is a change agent and Europe’s leading NGO in advocating for better health. It is a member-led organisation, made up of public health NGOs, patient groups, health professionals and disease groups, all working to improve health and strengthen the voice of public health in Europe. EPHAs vision is a Europe with universal good health and well-being, where all have access to a sustainable and high quality health system. A Europe whose policies and practices contribute to health.

I’ll be spending almost 15 weeks at EPHA which during that time I will be blogging about my experiences.

Stay tuned and see Ya!!!

#epha #internship #brussels

The Public Policy Experience

Here we are my last couple of days in Brussels and enjoying the last few coffees and brunches. It has indeed been an experience unlike any other. A massive thanks to EPHA for letting me take part in what they do and the contribution they make to our health. Their efforts are far reaching and their tasks are very challenging. Here is a little recap; Advocating for the health of our countries and the continent is not an easy task. There are so many layers to passing a policy that it takes much effort and discipline to stay and fight against the system. I have written other blogs that recaps my learnings and understanding of the policy making system.

I have learnt:

- What it means to advertise junk food and even alcohol to children. The implications this has on their health and lives later on.

- How food banks and food vouchers don’t really help us bring people out of poverty but rather can have the opposite effect since it is not looked at from a health perspective but rather an economic one.

- How the lack of education on healthy diets creates inequalities and the link between inequality and the enormous drain on public health care is ever so obvious.

- I have learnt that public funding of research and development for new medicines are not required to show evidence of findings, and how the pharmaceutical companies are being seen in the wide ranging eye of the NGO’s. Their influence and the advantage they take of their influence and the many misunderstanding of the industry and its regulations.

- There is genuine concern across all related professionals in the access to medicine when it comes to the new “Adaptive Pathways” that allows for faster approval of new medicine without adequate time given to see any side effects and issues new medicines could carry.

- Anti microbial resistance is a real threat to our lives and the lack of innovation in medicine will make this an even bigger problem for our children in the future.

- Industries have a lot of power and although we would like to believe that the interest of the public is always a priority the reality is that this is not the case and we need to hold governments more accountable for passing off policies that benefit Private organisations and hinder the health of our society.

- I have also learnt the severe lack of health care provided in the eastern countries and the huge concern this is for the EU as whole as a sick population often means a very unhealthy economy also.

- The global implications on trade agreements and the consequences to us all of Brexit. In particular, the consequences to the people of the United Kingdom.- The passionate people that are working hard to ensure that our health remains to be a priority and that we do not forget how far we have gotten over the last century and the diseases which we have managed to tame or even cure.

I have also learnt about THE SYSTEM: Policy making system has been built on complexity. Rightly so its trying to ensure policies that cater for 28 of the most diverse countries you can imagine to exist. Its complex trying to create a standard in vastly different economic and cultural circumstances. I enjoyed learning how the actually policy process works which was my blog on the EU structure. It was also very fascinating learning who makes suggestions and who makes decisions. In the system you have the government, the industries, the NGO’s and civil societies, you have various agencies acting on behalf of various industries and regulators, you have the public and you have the member states. Everyone acting within their own interest and what they believe should be the priority. It is complex but also powerful. I enjoyed being in the centre of change and how it all takes place. Its surreal to believe that you are part of this and that some suggestions you may have made have made it across the board of influence. Unlike any other conventional job you actually make a difference to people across Europe and not just in your industry or just your area of interest. This was definitely the highlight.

But BRUSSELS, I have spoken a lot about the different issues on the side of policy making and EPHA but living in Brussels has also opened my eyes to Europe and what an amazing continent this is. The city it self is always vibing and has so many interesting cafes, restaurants and markets that can keep you busy all year round. The city is full of internationals and what I found most interesting is the diversity that Brussels loves to embrace. Although from my perspective Brussels is a small city it has everything one would need for entertainment. There are so many events that are related to the EU and policy making and almost every large organisation will have a base here to ensure they are close to all the action. Employers find individual diversity very positive so you have people form all over the world working here. Brussels is close to many of the major cities such as Paris, Amsterdam and London and has a small yet various population. It's a happening city and definitely a place I could see myself coming back to. I have attached some of my favourite pictures that show a bit about how amazing this city is… even in the worst winter season 😃

Of course I cannot finish this blog without mentioning the two most important aspects of my internship. Marta and Sofie! I am so grateful to have made such strong friendships with these girls that I hope will carry us on for many many years to come. I have learnt so much from them both and have truly felt their support in the ups and downs. This experience really would not have been the same if it weren't for the two of them and the laughs and tears we shared. Thank you for everyone who has read these blogs and hope you found them insightful. I enjoyed writing it and hopefully when I near my education I will have more insight I could talk about and share.

#epha

Sustainable Diets Healthy Planet

Just before I am about to finish my internship I thought I touch on one more topic of interest. Sustainable diets! What does this mean to you? We are facing yet another concern to our health and all that is connected to public health with our choice in foods. If you ever thought about what you should and shouldn’t eat, you probably just thought about this form your own personal needs. I bet people have told you a variety of diets to try and making this such a confusing this confusing experience. The right information is hard to come by, what you should and shouldn’t eat has been a tough challenge. But when it comes to your diets and your personal needs shouldn’t be the only thing that is essential to consider, but consider what the wider affect of our choices on the people around you are and the environment in which we all live in. When you live in a big city away form where our food is grown its hard to see the impact we are causing and the destruction that takes place. I don’t want to frighten anyone when I say this but our choice of food don’t just impact our waste-lines which will ultimately impact the diseases we may be susceptible to getting, which then impacts the cost of our health system but they impact developing countries, our eco system and the entire planet. We have come to learn that eating the diets we have currently designed for us in the West will have an expiration date and before we are forced to change our consumption patters it's a good time to become more mindful about what we eat now. We are not perfect so it doesn’t have to be a clear cut of your existing habits but small changes are the ones that work the best and are always the ones that last long. If you cannot persuade your parents to reduce their meat intake then be the change you wish to see. If you don’t make this change your future generations will see it and they will not be very forgiving when we leave them in a situation where they struggle at every turn.

Climate change is a huge problem, and the food industry is responsible for 30% of greenhouse emissions across the EU according to the European Environmental Agency (located in Denmark btw). Our food is heavily processed and by the time it reaches our plates it has polluted our planet. Animal agricultural alone is responsible for about 20% of all green house emotions in the world. Our dietary patterns have a strong influence over the demand drawn on the agricultural industry and our choices directly impact this trend of growing greenhouse emissions as well as our direct contribution to a worsening state of climate change. We cannot sustain this level of meat consumption and maintain a balance in our environment.

All this without mentioning the health implications that our current diets have and the long term financial cost of our health care system. There is strong evidence that processed meat and red meat consumption has a strong link to chronic diseases and higher risk of early mortality rates. Not to say that moderate meat consumption cannot be healthy which in deed provides us with good quality protein and fat and lots of bioavailable micronutrients. It's the over consumption that is causing us harm and the environment that we are in. Here in Europe it is recommended that we consume approximately 500g of meat a week if we wish to stay within a healthy norm, whereas generally we currently consume almost 3 times this amount.

This also ties back with the Anti-Microbial resistance I wrote about a couple of weeks. As we consume so much meat and dairy the demand is growing to produce more. This demand forces companies to ensure production can be maximised, meaning that livestock is housed in smaller spaces not only violating animal rights for most of the time but more importantly they draw bacteria of one another and cause various diseases that are harmful to us. To ensure they don’t get sick farmers inject them with small doses of antibiotics meaning that the bacteria if not killed properly will also build resistants to the antibiotics which means if you get infected by this bacteria (can happen if you get food poisoning for example) chances are we won’t have any medicine to help you fight it, because also remember that innovation to antibiotics has slowed down significantly. The added factor of pharmaceutical pollution which is also a key factor to climate change and has to have a more sustainable way of dealing with it.

Overall our demand on the meat and dairy industry is not something that can continue to grow at the rate of 1.8% per year as it does currently. So what can you do to help contribute to a more sustainable diet? 1: Get informed! What are you eating and how do your choices impact the rest of the world. You may not think that your choice makes a difference but I promise you it does. If everyone made a decision to change just something small then collectively the difference is also created. Just like we collectively made a difference to eat so much meat and dairy we can also collectively stop eating it. 2: Make it a meat free Monday every Monday. Financially it will benefit you also and for the meat you will not buy on Mondays you can get saving and planning a holiday and then you can have a meat subsidised holiday. 3: Go visit a farm. Go outdoors and visit some cows and pigs and chickens that may one day end up on your table. Have a chat to those guys see what they have to say about the conditions they live in. I promise you that you cannot walk away from that experience and not feel like you have not connected with them. 4: Vegetarian Recipes are awesome if you would like some I can definitely share, and not to promote Pinterest but that sh** is awesome with the most amazing recipes of all sorts.

Not to mention that increasing your intake of vegetables not only lowers your risks of getting cancer, heart disease or any of these chronic disease now being so heavily part of our society but vegetables protect you form this also. The more varied vegetables you eat and nutrients you get form them the healthier you will be growing older, the better you will feel and less money you will have to spend on medicines and hospital stays. If you have ever been in a hospital you know its not the greatest most euphoric experience you will live to tell the tale of. Is this how you wana spend your free time? Not sure about you but I prefer traveling the world, meeting people and getting the best out of life as long as I can. The answer to that is… EAT VEGETABLES!!!!!!!

Here are some more links

https://epha.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Animal-Farming_Public-Health_Unavoidable-Transition-towards-Sustainable-Healthy-Diets_EPHA.pdf

http://www.eea.europa.eu/signals/signals-2015/articles/agriculture-and-climate-change

http://www.fcrn.org.uk/fcrn-blogs/tim-lang/sustainable-diets-rational-goal-irrational-consumers

#sustainable diets #agriculture #epha #diets #healthy planet #bekind #animal welfare #onelove #healthy economy

Anti-microbial Resistance (AMR) what is it and why you should be scared!

Let talk about anti-microbial Resistance (AMR) and why we need to worry about this problem more than what we currently do. Firstly, let me introduce you to AMR… AMR this is my blog, Blog this is AMR. AMR is the resistance of harmful bacteria which is increasingly gaining momentum as our population is increasingly consuming an overload of antibiotics. Whether that be through the most obvious prescription antibiotics like penicillin the doctor gives us or if we indirectly consume antibiotics through our food system from heavily medicated farm animals. This yet another reason why I heavily advocate for a more conscious meat consumption. Although being vegetarian doesn’t exclude you form overdosing on antibiotics as all dairy animals are also heavily medicated. Also, even being a vegan there is also a threat to anti-microbial resistance through cross contamination in the environment. Here is a little science lesson, there are bacteria around us all the time, in fact we are a cluster of a variety of bacteria that creates our more solid form. Without bacteria, we could not live as we do today, which means bacteria is essential to our lives and much of the bacteria types we know are good for us. It helps us with essential bodily functions like digestions and some of the bacteria helps us fight any bad bacteria that we are exposed to and keeps bad bacteria at bay. But too much exposure to bad bacteria will also kill us. As you can see its very much entangled in the lives which, we are leading and since it’s very difficult to make significant changes to how we go about the world today that’s why it calls for a serious concern and we should really be looking at ways to protect ourselves from this. Currently around 700,000 people a year lose the battle to anti-microbial resistance, in the next 30 years that figure will be 10 million people. Over the last 20 years or so we have seen a heavy decrease in innovation in short term use prescription drugs as large pharmaceutical companies don’t see it as financially viable as it is to using long term medicine which can be used for many years and ideally for a life time. About 70 years ago antibiotics have been invented and this was a celebrated success globally as they have helped us fight some of the deadliest diseases to name a couple are Tuberculosis and Typhoid.When we realised how great antibiotics work when we use them properly we got a bit too happy and started overprescribing. We also quickly realised that antibiotics don’t just work on humans but also on animals.When we industrialised our farming, and started cramming large quantities of animals in smaller spaces they started getting sick form one another and figured great we can just inject them with antibiotics to save them from getting sick.Small enough doses are used to ensure our food continues to be produced safely and hence we have also eliminated many food borne diseases like this. But these small doses are also too small to kill all the bad microbials so just like us humans who have evolved and adapted to new conditions they too evolve and adept to new living conditions and fight back. They then create their own immunity and become resistant to the antibiotics we give them. Below I have included some graphs which the WHO has released to show you a better picture of how it works and some suggestions of what you need to do to protect yourself.

The experience thus far with EPHA has really been invaluable to realise how important it is that we take ownership of our own health. To read up on different issues that take place around us and impacts us immensely. But with all the distractions like Facebook and the latest DJ.Trump tweet keeps us unaware of what goes on. I urge anybody reading this blog that you take some serious interest. Al though big industries like pharmaceutical companies don’t want to kill you, the reality is that money is a big driving factor around what they will focus on in developing. Government definitely has a bigger responsibility to wards us however sometimes we need to remind them that we are important to consider when making policies. I can tell you many crazy stories I have read about AMR but I have attached a couple of links to get you acquainted.

http://imunews.imu.edu.my/health/antibiotics-friend-foe/ http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/article/msf-takes-antibiotic-resistance http://ec.europa.eu/health/ngo_award/home_en

#public health #amr #getlearning #european union #epha #besmart