Around the world, food has always been an important part of life. Every human being in the world has to eat to survive. However, in this article, Andrew Lansley tackles the problem of how food is slowly killing many humans-not the other way around. The food obsessed cultures of the UK and US are seeing growing numbers of their citizens suffering with obesity. Even though there are health initiatives in place such as ‘Health4Life’ and the ‘Food Standards Agency’ many people are overweight or obese. Many European countries surrounding the UK are not having an issue with obesity. This is do to the tight regulation of their food industry. For instance, “France and Italy have considerably lower obesity rates, they also benefit from a thriving national food culture with smaller scale retail structures and artisan producers.” This quote from Dr. Myriam Wilks-Heeg, shows the differences between food sources in different parts of Europe. Many countries who do not have the majority of the population being > 20% over the normal body weight are eating healthier foods. In addition to food, alcohol choices are different around the world. According to this article, 25% of the United Kingdom’s population drinks 75% of alcohol in dangerous, unhealthy ways. Unfortunately, alcohol is readily available in supermarkets and at low-cost. Therefore, essential food items are sold for more. If alcohol were taken out of the supermarket and more nutritious foods brought it, the UK would be at a better place.
Overall, this article was informative on obesity issues on-going overseas and in the US. It is much easier said than done to put health initiatives into place, however they must show progress. There are so many overweight and obese people and the numbers are rising. People in low-socio economic places around the world are limited to cheap food. Therefore, they will get fast food or whatever is cheap. It is sad to see so many people dying from the food that is readily available to them. I believe that the government should be responsible for initiating healthy grocery stores in every neighborhood in their country. Stricter policies need to be enforced to re-gain our country's health status, along with many countries around the world. No human being should have to eat food that is unhealthy, especially if it does not provide details on to where it came from. For instance, Macdonalds meat is from Argentina. I have not eaten a Mcdonalds hamburger in 2 years. There is no way of knowing how the food gets made and distributed. Like Dr. Sills taught one day in class, everyone should have their own rabbit farm.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/oct/16/food-alcohol-industries-tougher-regulation
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