A Food System That Works for Children: The Time to Act Is Now!

Lebanon is facing a silent yet escalating crisis, one that hides in lunchboxes, school canteens, supermarket aisles, and TV commercials. It is a crisis of poor diets, inadequate nutrition, and a struggling food system, one that is increasingly affecting the health, development, and future of Lebanon’s children.

Recent data from UNICEF’s LIMA Survey paints a troubling picture: three-quarters of children under two, and half of adolescents are not receiving the diverse, nutritious diets they need for healthy growth and development. Half of children under five and two-thirds of adolescent girls and women aren’t getting the essential vitamins and minerals their bodies need. One in three adolescent girls are overweight or obese. Meanwhile rates of stunting among young children have doubled in recent years. This triple burden is not simply the outcome of economic hardship or limited willpower; it is the direct consequences of long-standing systemic weaknesses across our systems, particularly the food system.

Food systems are more than farms and factories; they are the ecosystems that shape what we eat, when we eat, and how we understand food. In Lebanon, children are increasingly surrounded by food environments where ultra-processed, high-sugar, high salt, high-fat products are cheaper, more accessible, and more aggressively marketed than healthier alternatives. These influences are structural, not personal. They are embedded in the environments children navigate daily – from their homes and schools to their phones and streets.

UNICEF believes that transforming Lebanon’s food system must start where the need is greatest and the impact most lasting: with children. This means placing their health, their voices, and their rights at the heart of food system reform. We call on government, civil society, and the private sector to act urgently and strategically to make this shift a reality.

How? By investing in nutrition literacy in schools and communities. By regulating the marketing of unhealthy foods to children. By implementing clear, front-of-pack labeling to help families make better choices. And crucially, by including children and youth as co-creators of the food environments they navigate every day.

This week Lebanon is participating in the global UN Food Systems Summit Stocktaking conference to share progress and experiences in transforming national food systems, together with governments from around the world, donors, private sector actors and other stakeholders. As this event is expected to generate renewed global interest and investments in food systems reforms, including in Lebanon, we urge national stakeholders to embrace a child-centered vision of food systems transformation. Doing so will not only advance the Right to Food for all but also strengthen Lebanon’s alignment with its Sustainable Development Goals and ensuring greater impact on the human capital for the people of Lebanon and for national prosperity.

Children do not just need more food. They need the right food. They need a system that supports their growth, wellbeing, and future. If we fail to act now, we risk raising a generation burdened with preventable disease and diminished potential.

Putting children at the center of food systems is not just policy. It is a smart investment. It is justice.

Now is the time to act. Because the future of Lebanon is shaped not only at the family table – but in the policies, environments and systems that surround every child.