A good article but it left a big reason why a majority of the poorer households in UK, & around the world, won't have access to healthy & nutritious food. One of the big reasons is social inequality, which in turn, is caused by, in major part, by huge disparity in income & wealth.
There are political & business elites -- the 1-percenters -- who live in their own little world. But the other 99% of the world populations are trying to survive on low income. They don't earn enough to buy healthy & nutritious food in the stores. That majority will always buy the cheap food, which is usually not grown organically & full of calories. Those people know that what they are buying is not healthy for their families but they don't have a choice.
At the same time, the government pays millions in grants & subsidies to companies in military-industrial complex to make new & advanced weaponry, but don't make effective agricultural policies to incentivize scientists & farmers to come up with new & efficient means to grow healthy & nutritious food, all the while limiting the use of fertilizers & harmful chemicals.
At the end of the day, majority of the families know which food is healthy & which one isn't. They would love to buy healthy & nutritious food but are constrained by their income level. If the government wants their public to become healthy, then one major change would be to increase minimum wages & taxes on wealthy individuals. Poor families would readily buy healthy & nutritious food with their increase in income.
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The world is entering an era of global food insecurity which is already leading to the “double burden” of both obesity & malnutrition occurring side by side within countries & even within the same families, a leading food expert has warned.
It will become increasingly common to see obese parents in some developing countries raising underweight & stunted children because high-calorie food is cheaper & more readily available than the nutritious food needed for healthy growth, said Alan Dangour of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.
“We are certainly looking at a period of increased instability in the supply of food, and also the diversity and types of food that are available are going to change,” said Dr Dangour, who is to lead a major study into global food insecurity & its impact on health.
“A result of this is called the ‘double burden’ of malnutrition,” he added. “Under-nutrition causes starvation and stunting in children, whereas obesity and over-weight in adults is another form of malnutrition, caused by eating the wrong type of food.
“The double burden exists in countries, or indeed in households, where you get a stunted child and an overweight mother. And that happens in many countries around the world as a result of the wrong diets being eaten [by adults] and the wrong diets being given to children,” he said.
“It’s not the fault of the mother, it’s the fault of the food system where the mother cannot afford to buy nutritious food such as dairy, eggs and fruit and is predominantly feeding her child a diet that is rich in calories, such as oil and cereal-based carbohydrates,” Dr Dangour said. “That diet will not be sufficient for the child to grow. It will stop the child from being hungry but it will also stop the child from growing properly,” he said.
...
“We know that at the end of this century it’s going to be very difficult to grow crops in certain parts of the world because of increasing temperatures,” Dr Dangour said. “In other parts of the world there is going to be increasing productivity because warmer temperatures will mean longer growing seasons.”
He said no single prediction on food insecurity could tell the whole story because climate change will affect different crops differently in different parts of the world: “For the UK, we could imagine a scenario in which changing food availability globally leads to changes in the availability of and the access to that food in the UK.
“For example, cereals may not be affected but fruit and vegetables, critical to a healthy diet, may become much more expensive. As people are responsive to food prices, it may lead to a reduction in consumption of those foods in the poorer population, which may lead to increased health inequality in the UK.”
In the past, policy-makers & planners have concentrated on producing enough food based on calorie content, often to the detriment of more nutritious food, such as pulses & fruit, that are required for healthy growth. This has helped to fuel an epidemic of obesity and diabetes, Dr Dangour explained.
“It’s happened over the past 10 years or so & it’s hugely important. It means policy-making is an enormous challenge, because you think: ‘It’s about just increasing the amount of food we produce.’ Well, no: you need to think about the types of food you are producing and about the access to those foods.
“As food availability globally changes, we could see both of those things happening. We could see under-nutrition and we are already seeing enormous increases in chronic diseases such as obesity and diabetes,” he added.
There are political & business elites -- the 1-percenters -- who live in their own little world. But the other 99% of the world populations are trying to survive on low income. They don't earn enough to buy healthy & nutritious food in the stores. That majority will always buy the cheap food, which is usually not grown organically & full of calories. Those people know that what they are buying is not healthy for their families but they don't have a choice.
At the same time, the government pays millions in grants & subsidies to companies in military-industrial complex to make new & advanced weaponry, but don't make effective agricultural policies to incentivize scientists & farmers to come up with new & efficient means to grow healthy & nutritious food, all the while limiting the use of fertilizers & harmful chemicals.
At the end of the day, majority of the families know which food is healthy & which one isn't. They would love to buy healthy & nutritious food but are constrained by their income level. If the government wants their public to become healthy, then one major change would be to increase minimum wages & taxes on wealthy individuals. Poor families would readily buy healthy & nutritious food with their increase in income.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The world is entering an era of global food insecurity which is already leading to the “double burden” of both obesity & malnutrition occurring side by side within countries & even within the same families, a leading food expert has warned.
It will become increasingly common to see obese parents in some developing countries raising underweight & stunted children because high-calorie food is cheaper & more readily available than the nutritious food needed for healthy growth, said Alan Dangour of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.
“We are certainly looking at a period of increased instability in the supply of food, and also the diversity and types of food that are available are going to change,” said Dr Dangour, who is to lead a major study into global food insecurity & its impact on health.
“A result of this is called the ‘double burden’ of malnutrition,” he added. “Under-nutrition causes starvation and stunting in children, whereas obesity and over-weight in adults is another form of malnutrition, caused by eating the wrong type of food.
“The double burden exists in countries, or indeed in households, where you get a stunted child and an overweight mother. And that happens in many countries around the world as a result of the wrong diets being eaten [by adults] and the wrong diets being given to children,” he said.
“It’s not the fault of the mother, it’s the fault of the food system where the mother cannot afford to buy nutritious food such as dairy, eggs and fruit and is predominantly feeding her child a diet that is rich in calories, such as oil and cereal-based carbohydrates,” Dr Dangour said. “That diet will not be sufficient for the child to grow. It will stop the child from being hungry but it will also stop the child from growing properly,” he said.
...
“We know that at the end of this century it’s going to be very difficult to grow crops in certain parts of the world because of increasing temperatures,” Dr Dangour said. “In other parts of the world there is going to be increasing productivity because warmer temperatures will mean longer growing seasons.”
He said no single prediction on food insecurity could tell the whole story because climate change will affect different crops differently in different parts of the world: “For the UK, we could imagine a scenario in which changing food availability globally leads to changes in the availability of and the access to that food in the UK.
“For example, cereals may not be affected but fruit and vegetables, critical to a healthy diet, may become much more expensive. As people are responsive to food prices, it may lead to a reduction in consumption of those foods in the poorer population, which may lead to increased health inequality in the UK.”
In the past, policy-makers & planners have concentrated on producing enough food based on calorie content, often to the detriment of more nutritious food, such as pulses & fruit, that are required for healthy growth. This has helped to fuel an epidemic of obesity and diabetes, Dr Dangour explained.
“It’s happened over the past 10 years or so & it’s hugely important. It means policy-making is an enormous challenge, because you think: ‘It’s about just increasing the amount of food we produce.’ Well, no: you need to think about the types of food you are producing and about the access to those foods.
“As food availability globally changes, we could see both of those things happening. We could see under-nutrition and we are already seeing enormous increases in chronic diseases such as obesity and diabetes,” he added.
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