Comments on: A Global Recipe for Disaster

By: Erin Hagan

Erin Hagan — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:32:29 +0000

The 2002 World Health Report stated, “Much of the world’s disease burden is the result of under nutrition among the poor and over nutrition among the better-off. Most of the risks are strongly related to patterns of living and particularly to consumption – either too much or too little.” Worldwide, when considering mortality, morbidity, and decreased quality of life, chronic diseases account for the greatest overall population disease burden.
Roland Sturm, a health economist at the Rand Corporation, compared the effects of obesity with those of smoking, heavy drinking, and poverty on chronic health conditions and health care expenditures. His results showed obesity to be the most serious health problem both in terms of chronic illness and health spending.
The situation is espeically troublesome in developing countries where they are struggling with a “dual burden of disease” — malnourished and obese people living in the same household.

The following link provides more information about the phenomenon of the dual burden of disease:

http://www.prb.org/Articles/2006/TheDualBurdenofOverweightandUnderweightinDevelopingCountries.aspx

By: Noah Flower

Noah Flower — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:15:48 +0000

That is shocking and sad. Thank you for putting together the facts in a clear and concise form. One thing to keep in mind in this conversation is the intricate connections between diet, development, and the use of resources. The prevailing wisdom about development is that the Global South ought to industrialize to the same extent as the North as quickly as possible so that everyone on the planet can enjoy the lifestyle now available in the US, Europe, and to the wealthy of the world’s megacities. That idea springs from the best of intentions but is flawed for several reasons. One is what you’ve highlighted: the diet of the West is massively unhealthy. Another is that the lifestyle of the West, diet included, is heavily resource-intensive. We use many times more water, oil, wood, metal, stone and other materials than those in the South. That would be a concern in any case, since those resources are finite or spring from sources that renew at a slow rate, but it’s downright frightening given how quickly we’re running out of oil, water (in many places), and other raw materials. There’s an iceberg of resource-management issues we’re crashing into with every passing day. Obesity is just the ugly tip that stares you in the face on the subway.

By: shireen malekafzali

shireen malekafzali — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 21:10:02 +0000

This is startling information –particularly when looking at the distribution of obesity across the globe.

Using the World Health Organization (WHO) statistics, if you combine the number of adults that are overweight with the number of obese adults worldwide, you have a total of 2 billion adults who are above a healthy weight. That means that 1/3 of the worlds entire population is overweight or obese -and looking at the map, the US is weighing heavily into the equation.

This number is in fact not projected to get any better in the coming years, but only get worse. The WHO predicts there will be 3 billion overweight or obese adults in the world in the next seven years. Even with population numbers rising, the addition of 1 billion new overweight or obese adults is very significant.

Also, remember that these numbers (and the map) don’t include any of the world’s children that are overweight of obese.