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Doha, Qatar: In line with its commitment to fostering exemplary practices for future mega-events, Qatar has embarked on a journey to share its wealth of knowledge and experience in delivering a health-centric World Cup.
Qatar is actively engaging in discussions with the Paris 2024 Olympic Games organizers, said Senior Advisor to the Minister of Public Health Office, Dr. Roberto Bertollini.
“The aim was to host a healthy and safe FIFA World Cup and also to create a legacy for sport and health serving as a model of reference with a tangible, measurable solution for replicating this type of approach in the future beyond 2022,” said Dr. Bertollini.
“We have been in touch with France for the Olympic Games,” he said during an online seminar to launch the guide on “Healthier food and healthier food environments at sports events.”
The guide results from a unique global partnership between WHO and Qatar to promote healthy practices during the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022.
The ‘Sport for Health’ partnership has been critical in delivering the healthiest world ever and ensuring that best practices were developed and shared for future mega-events.
Dr Bertollini dubbed the partnership “a crucial achievement” and said that it piloted the model of collaboration and generated lessons to be replicated in future post-events.
“So, we are accumulated in experience, which can be useful for other countries,” he added.
According to Dr Bertollini, the experience of Qatar 2022 can be scaled up in future sports events, and he also proposed a global network to be built to provide healthier environments at sports events.
“Among the values that we included in this project (Sport for Health) were health security and health promotion with respect to physical activity, mental health, and communication in a broad sense. We have concentrated our attention and will work on the issue of nutrition and healthier food and healthier environments,” Dr Bertollini said. FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 achieved approximately 30% healthier food options within stadiums and 21% in the FIFA Fan Festival, based on WHO criteria.
“These figures might not look very big, but they compare with 0, almost 0, which was the situation before in other events and also before we acted in this direction,” Dr Bertollini said. He emphasised that Qatar 2022 has changed the conception of major sports events by providing healthy food choices.
“I think we challenged the belief that major sports events are incompatible with healthier food options…We indeed succeeded in providing healthier food options. It is a very important concept to stress that we demonstrated an alignment to offer food with public health values and public health principles,” Dr Bertollini said.
