Valerie Gonçalves-Tintanar, a physician and the head of nutrition and public health for Brazil’s Federation of Public Services Unions (FEPES), is one of the experts in the discussion committee: “My opinion is that the WHO-approved diet for children is one the whole world has rejected… There are too many [poor people], not enough, in too many countries.”

So why is the WHO pushing for the changes?

The answer goes all the way to the top – including President and Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff. In an interview last February, she told reporters the aim was to help children. “We have always had the children, we have given them the food they need, and we have taught them that, in a food based culture, one should eat whatever and everyone should eat what everyone is told, regardless of the type of food,” she said.

And, for their part, the FEPES say they are fed up with the idea those around them have the final say in what they eat. “Our message is: The food is what you eat,” she said in an interview. “In the past, we had more control, we had more access to all of that stuff. And we didn’t. So we’ve now come to understand that without our opinion and our authority, that is something we’re not supposed to control.”

And the idea of “food culture” they want to combat? “Well, food culture is an example of an economic development project,” she said. “So to put it in a food-based culture? It’s really not… What is a food-based culture? We have an education system that is based based in the knowledge of food production, agriculture. Because we don’t have that knowledge now. So we want to change that, to give it to the world and that’s what we are trying to do.”