Innovation and Trends in the Global Food Systems, Dietary Patterns and Healthy Sustainable Lifestyle in the Digital Age

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Background

All aspects of feeding and nourishing people: growing, harvesting, packaging, processing, transporting, marketing, and consuming food are part of the food system. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, food systems faced many challenges such as hunger increases, which affected up to 811 million people as of 2020, while healthy diets were unaffordable for at least 3 billion people. More than 80% of the population affected by hunger and 95% of people unable to afford a healthy diet were found in Asia and Africa. Transformation of the global food system is clearly needed if we wish to embed equity, sustainability, and health as priorities in food provision and consumption. Some of these transformations will be facilitated through new technologies, while others will require public policy shifts, changes in the private agro-food industry, actions by civil society, and behavioral changes by individuals. In this dynamic context, technology actors and the consumers they serve sit at an important nexus within the food system, and have the potential to make decisions that cut across the challenges and opportunities to improve sustainable food system outcomes.

Although food security has improved in developed countries, many countries, particularly low- to middle-income countries (LMIC), suffer from significant food insecurity challenges. In addition, food production, accessibility, and availability have been further impacted due to the COVID-19 outbreak, causing growing global concerns regarding food security, especially within the most vulnerable communities. Moreover, the transformation of food systems for addressing healthy nutrition, food insecurity, and public health issues is a global concern. Food security and nutrition systems are directly related to human well-being and global stability, particularly in a time when diets transition toward increased reliance upon processed foods, increased fast-food intake, high consumption of edible oils, and sugar-sweetened beverages, lack of physical activities, and increased lifestyles worldwide. These changes in lifestyle continue to contribute to the growing pandemic of non-communicable diseases such as obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular diseases are clearly noticed across the globe. The study of nutrition systems, food security, and the roles of technological advances, especially in LMIC, is considered the major factor in understanding food transition and population health. Physical inactivity threatens LMIC public health as it is a prime behavioral risk factor associated with major non-communicable diseases such as coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and breast and colon cancer. Its long-term impacts increasingly burden national economies. Decreasing its prevalence is paramount toward decreasing premature mortality and restoring healthy populations. In its most recent iteration of a global action plan for the prevention of non-communicable diseases, the World Health Organization established voluntary global targets to reduce physical inactivity by 10%. Currently, limited published systematic analysis of physical inactivity prevalence among Muslim-majority countries exists. Existing literature is concentrated on Arab countries, which represent less than half of all Muslim nations. To date, however, pan-Islamic physical inactivity data have not been reported. Doing so can potentially galvanize religion-specific agencies (e.g., Islamic Relief Worldwide, Organization of Islamic Cooperation) to support efforts aimed at decreasing physical inactivity.

Multiple correlates of physical inactivity among women in Islamic countries: (a) fatigue and tiredness; (b) lack of social support, and culturally restrictive sex role and behavioral expectations for women; (c) lack of suitable exercise facilities. As this list of correlates spans intrapersonal, interpersonal, environmental, and policy domains a social-ecological model should be used to clarify their unique contribution and interpretation. Future research should determine if these or other correlates of physical inactivity are associated with a gender gap among non-Arab Muslims.

Within the integration of artificial intelligence, the deployment of data science techniques, information and communication technology (ICT) applications have introduced innovative methods in understanding the trends in the food systems, dietary patterns, and healthy sustainable lifestyle at the global level. Thus, we believe a Research Topic-specific for LMIC that merges food security, nutrition, and technological innovation with the application of artificial intelligence, data science, and ICT would provide an in-depth understanding of their impact on human health, as well as evidencing their global trends before and after COVID-19.

This Research Topic welcomes original research articles, reviews, systematic reviews, technology and code, and methods, covering, but not limited to, the following themes:
1. Food consumption patterns, healthy lifestyle, and physical activity.
2. Sustainable healthy lifestyle.
3. Nutrition and food access, food availability, food utilization, and stability in the age of COVID-19.
4. Sustainability of the food system when coping with crises.
5. Opportunities for future research and innovation on food and nutrition security and agriculture.
6. Food systems metrics: food nutrient adequacy; ecosystem stability; food affordability and availability; socio-cultural wellbeing; food safety; resilience; waste and loss reduction.
7. The food system sustainable development paradigm. This value-added sets in motion feedback mechanisms that relate to economic, social, and environmental sustainability, and directly impact poverty, hunger, and nutrition.
8. Social, economic, and cultural determinants of food security, food transition, and population health in LMIC.

Keywords: COVID-19 public health nutrition, machine learning, technology

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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