It is clear that security, trade and the economy have dominated much of the conversation surrounding the 2026 BRICS summit. But for a group that is home to nearly half of humanity, another issue deserves just as much attention: the changing health risks facing its people.
The summit took an important step in this direction. The launch of the BRICS Healthy Lifestyles Mission, the endorsement of the BRICS Healthy Lifestyles Joint Initiative Roadmap (2026-2029) and the Compendium of Replicatible Healthy Lifestyles Best Practices indicate a growing recognition that prevention must be brought closer to the center of public policy.
This is important for India during Poshan Maach. Nutrition is no longer just about whether people have enough to eat. Increasingly, it is also about what people eat, how they live and related diseases.
Compressed power transition
The BRICS countries are at very different stages of development. Ethiopia continues to struggle with food insecurity and malnutrition. India and Indonesia face a persistent problem of maternal and child undernutrition, despite rising obesity and non-communicable diseases (NCDs). China and Brazil have significantly reduced traditional forms of undernutrition but are facing a rise in diet-related diseases. In the Gulf countries, obesity and diabetes are major public health problems.
Economic growth and urbanization are rapidly changing the way people eat and live. Traditional diets are giving way to more processed and processed foods. Most often, food is eaten outside the home or ordered online. Children are exposed to ubiquitous food advertising, but at the same time become less physically active.
However, malnutrition, anemia and micronutrient deficiencies have not disappeared. Along with them, overweight, obesity, diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular diseases are on the rise.
India is at the center of this transition
Our nutrition policy rightly focuses on hunger, maternal and child nutrition, anemia and the first 1,000 days of a child’s life from conception to two years of age. These priorities remain fundamental. But they are no longer enough.
A child who is poorly nourished in the first years of life may later grow up surrounded by inexpensive foods high in salt, sugar and fat and with too little physical activity. Poor nutrition in childhood and diabetes or hypertension in adulthood can be part of the same life story.
Much of the West has faced these challenges more consistently, with food shortages and severe malnutrition declining before obesity and lifestyle diseases began to dominate. Emerging economies face a challenging nutrition transition. Yesterday’s problems remain, but tomorrow’s illnesses have already arrived.
We’ll have to fight both at the same time.
From food security to healthy living
This changes the question that food policy must answer. The greatest problem of the last century was: can we produce enough food? The challenge of this century is also: can we enable people to eat and live well enough to stay healthy?
Agriculture, food, nutrition and health can no longer operate in isolation. What farmers grow influences what is sold in markets. What food companies produce and promote determines what families buy. And what children eat and the habits they pick up affect their health decades later.
The BRICS healthy lifestyle mission provides an opportunity to build just such connections. His roadmap integrates healthy eating, physical activity, traditional food culture and evidence-based behavior change into a cohesive framework. The accompanying collection of replicable practices can help countries learn from each other rather than constantly inventing new solutions.
India should use this opportunity not only to share programs, but also to demonstrate how healthy lifestyles can be embedded in food systems, schools and communities.
Next 7000 days
Poshan Maah offers the opportunity to expand our ambitions.
The first 1000 days remain fundamental. Nothing should weaken this focus. But India must now pay much more attention to the next 7,000 days: childhood and adolescence.
These are the years when lifelong habits around food, physical activity, sleep and well-being are formed. They offer perhaps the best opportunity to act before today’s children become tomorrow’s patients.
In this way, schools can become one of India’s most powerful preventive health institutions.
It doesn’t require another nutrition textbook, subject, or exam. Children often already know that vegetables are good, too much sugar is bad, and physical activity is important. Knowing is not the same as doing.
Schools should help children lead healthy lifestyles by eating a variety of foods, drinking water, limiting foods high in salt, sugar and fat, eating mindfully, staying active, sleeping well and maintaining good hygiene. School nutrition, nutrition management, nutrition literacy, physical activity and family involvement must be part of a comprehensive preventive health strategy.
India’s fight against hunger and malnutrition is not over. But along with this, another problem arose.
The BRICS summit provided a useful framework for responding to both of these issues. The challenge now is to bring the mission and roadmap for healthy living to life.
Poshan should increasingly mean early nutrition, early formation of healthy habits and early disease prevention. For India – and much of the BRICS countries – the next frontier will not just be enough food. This allows people to eat well, live well, and stay healthy throughout their lives.
Pawan Agarwal is the former CEO of FSSAI and the founder and CEO of Food Future Foundation.
Published – September 16, 2026, 12:55 pm EST.
