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Committees
World Health Organization (WHO) United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (UNCSW) United Nations Commission on Science & Technology for Development (UNCSTD) African Union (AU) Silicon Valley Summit (Specialized) Preamble to the Annexation of Hawaii: the Reign of Liliuokalani (Specialized) |
World Health Organization (WHO) Chairs: Josh Lerman & Vivek Rajani
Email: josler21@bergen.org Topic Summary A: The Rise of Obesity in Developing Nations Recently, the world has been focusing on global pandemics, specifically COVID-19 and how it has taken the lives of countless amounts of people and has ravaged national economies. As a result, people have lost focus on epidemics, specifically obesity, which has claimed nearly 9 times as many lives as COVID-19. In the past few decades, obesity rates have skyrocketed in many developed and developing countries, which about 13% of the global population being obese. Obesity can be defined as an excessive amount of body fat, acquired by consistently consuming more calories than expended. Obesity leads to many other health issues, such as cardiovascular disease, stroke, diabetes, and arthritis, just to name a few. The recent rise in obesity can be attributed to many factors. For example, many large food companies have opted for cheaper and often unhealthier means of food production, lowering the prices for unhealthy food products in comparison to healthier foods. As a result, consumers usually purchase those cheaper products, ultimately ending in poor diets. Compounded with lower prices for unhealthy foods, more efficient and convenient technologies and urbanization has lower levels of physical activity and have promoted sedentary lifestyles. Consequently, people are not using all the calories they consume, leading to a buildup of fat. The World Health Organization and several countries have made significant headway in combating obesity, but there are an equal number that have not. So, the question still remains: how can the World Health Organization maintain its fight towards stabilizing global obesity levels and how can more proactive countries help those that are falling behind? Topic Summary B: Implementing Countermeasures for Future Pandemics Throughout society’s history, humans have faced many challenges. Ranging from wars, to harsh climate, and shortage of resources, human beings prevailed in the end. However, one of these challenges still occurs today, putting society on the brink of chaos: pandemics. A disease that spreads through the entire world like wildfire, sometimes just infecting the population, others killing anything in its way. Currently in 2020, the world has been struck with another pandemic, and it can be seen by the damage which countries were well prepared for the situation, compared to ones that weren’t. While it is WHO’s job to help countries combat the current pandemic at hand, it is also our priority to help countries prepare for any future scenario like this one. Working together with other countries is a key factor in coming up with a resolution for this issue, as a pandemic affects the world as a whole. 
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