Blog number 2, Finding the Balance.

               Throughout my entire life I have been fortunate enough to never have food insecurity. My parents always took care of me and my siblings with ample food, and provided it in a mostly nutritious balance. Unfortunately, a lot of the world is not so fortunate as to always have the next meal without concern. World hunger has been a concern and a fight for quite a while, but world organizations have been able to assist and diminish the global crisis, especially over the past few decades. However, when trying to supply vast amounts of people with sufficient food, the quality of food is going to have to be lowered. Cheap food is going to be less expensive, and for developing nations, that may be all they can afford. In the article "Obesity weighs on Latin America after success in fight against hunger", it is addressed that an unlikely outcome of the efforts to reduce hunger issues in Latin countries, obesity levels are rising faster than any other developing nations. The reason? unhealthy cheap foods. The market for food in these countries is dominated by multinational food and beverage firms that create high sugar, sodium, and fat diets for people. The story tells of a Latino woman who was in a fast food chicken type of place purchasing a bucket of fried chicken which would feed her family with an affordable price. The issue of poverty stricken areas having higher obesity rates is not new news, and is found on every scale from national to our own neighbors. For example, in Cherokee NC, the rates of obesity and depression are evident because of the cheap tasty foods such as cookies and microwavable snacks that cost maybe a few dollars. It is no lie that healthier foods do cost more money, and for countries such as mexico it is not available, and not affordable. The problem has shifted from a lack of food, to a more than necessary amount. More importantly a more fattening, unhealthy amount. The question is though, is it better for these countries to have the increasing amounts of obesity and the diseases that parallel with it, or be suffering to find ample amounts of food? For these typically poor nations, my answer is finding the balance. Obesity related problems cost the Mexican economy an estimated 5.5 billion dollars in 2008, with an estimated 12.5 billion by the year 2017. That tremendous amount of money is counteractive the actions taken to supply food to the people. If the country can counteract this rise with the proactive strategies that are already trying to be put in place, perhaps the rates will slow, and eventually begin to decline. Hopefully.

Alex Rogers, 2/13/15, 10:50 am.
http://whbl.com/news/articles/2015/feb/13/obesity-weighs-on-latin-america-after-success-in-fight-against-hunger/