World Food Day, which has been celebrated in October for 37 years, is an initiative promoted by FAO, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. This organization seeks, through the ephemeris, to draw attention to the importance of agricultural production and food as instructions of a healthy society on all continents.

To this end, FAO harmonizes and promotes, on the one hand, agricultural production - which must be sufficient and sustainable - and, on the other hand, the food needs of each region of the planet. All this is reflected in the tables of reference letter of recommended intakes that take into account the cultural and social differences of each region, so that the indications offered take into account the subject of per diem expenses , cultural preferences, religious singularities, etc.

These recommendations include the levels of essential nutrients that an individual should take to achieve an ideal state of health. As societies evolve, these tables are updated periodically, and serve as a basis for designing health programs and for labeling the foods we buy every day.

Likewise, the FAO, at partnership with the World Health Organization (WHO), publishes health statistics with figures on the incidence of obesity, cardiovascular diseases, etc. These data are used to propose different strategies. This is the case, for example, of the latest figures on malnutrition and obesity: 793 million people in the world suffer from chronic hunger, while 3.4 million people die each year as a result of overweight and obesity. A dramatic reality that FAO is trying to reduce through the FAO Nutrition Strategy, which includes very specific objectives, such as the organization of international conferences on nutrition or the implementation of agricultural programs and policies that have a positive impact on nutrition.

At the normative level, again at partnership of the WHO, the two organizations publish the Codex Alimentarius: an international code that was created in 1963 to develop harmonized food standards that protect consumer health and promote fair practices in the food trade.

These recommendations, guidelines and guidelines have a wide application internship in each country when designing health plans or recommended diets. For example, the weekly diets already offered by many school canteens in different geographical areas, and which are usually supervised by dieticians-nutritionists, are based on the regional recommendations established by FAO.

In the case of countries with armed conflicts, famine, etc., this organization publishes guides and guidelines on how to act to guarantee food safety, with precise indications on recommended crops according to the most urgent nutritional deficiencies, cultural peculiarities - it publishes, for example, halal food guides for Muslim populations - or on how to act in the event of different food intoxications.

At final FAO represents the attempt to coordinate, on a global level, the production and intake of food of sufficient quality and quantity, so as to guarantee, in this respect, the health of the population.

From the same prism of dissemination of healthy lifestyle habits, the School of Pharmacy and Nutrition of the University of Navarra -which collaborates with the NAOS strategy of AECOSAN and with the research center at network CIBERobn- joins this world day with a workshop dedicated to food, where topics such as nutrition related to cancer, the Education in healthy habits in young people and the relationship between food and prevention of infections will be addressed. All this, again, with the commitment to provide society with information and a space for discussion on a basic issue for health: our food.