Why in News?

• The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has launched a new mass media campaign in order to create awareness about trans fats and eliminate them in India by 2022.

Objective:

• It will support FSSAI’s global target of eliminating trans-fat in India by 2022, a year ahead of global target by World Health Organization (WHO). It is in line with FSSAOI’s objective to get Freedom from ‘Trans Fat: India@75′.

Heart Attack Rewind Campaign:

• It is a 30-second public service announcement to be broadcast in 17 languages for a period of four weeks on YouTube, Facebook, Hotstar, and Voot.
• It will also be placed on outdoor hoardings and run on radio stations in Delhi and the National Capital Region.
• The campaign will warn citizens about the health hazards of consuming trans fats and offer strategies to avoid them through healthier alternatives.
• This campaign will concentrate on the demand side (consumers), who in turn, will push the supply side (food manufacturers) to come up with various strategies in order to reduce and later replace trans fats.

Significance:

• Studies have recently shown that 60,000 deaths occur every year due to cardiovascular diseases, which in turn are caused due to high consumption of trans fats.
• Since the impact of trans fats on human health is increasing exponentially, it is very important to create awareness about them.
• In May this year, the WHO released a step-by-step guide for the elimination of industrially-produced trans-fatty acids from the global food supply.
• Since then, a lot of countries have made efforts to reduce the levels of trans fats and in some cases, have completely banned them.
• India is also moving towards same by first reducing the levels from 5 per cent to 2 per cent and then altogether by 2022.

Trans Fats:

• Artificial Trans fats are created in an industrial process that adds hydrogen to liquid vegetable oils to make them more solid.
• Since they are easy to use, inexpensive to produce and last a long time, and give foods a desirable taste and texture, they are still widely used despite their harmful effects being well-known.

Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI):

• FSSAI is a nodal statutory agency responsible for protecting and promoting public health in India hrough regulation and supervision of food safety.
• It was established under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 and operates under aegis of Union Ministry of Health & Family Welfare.