It is a huge problem to determine the cause of death - was it organ failure, or the diabetes that cause the organ failure, or the obesity that caused the diabetes, or the food that caused the obesity, or the problem that caused eating too much bad food? Maybe the initial problem was to be born...
However, there is no doubt that avoiding obesity and some other problems increase life quality.
Several European countries are currently researching, for public money, how to make farms produce vegetables, that are as healthy as they were 50 years ago. This is not easy, because the markets favor vegetables that are nice-looking, taste okay, but they don't favor healthy vegetables because it is impossible to inspect for consumers.
There are already traffic-light similar systems around, and they seem to have a certain effect. If healthier vegetables etc. can be selected objectively, I assume that these parameters will be included in those systems. However, as far as I see it, the most prevailing problem is that people choose food with a high calorie concentration, instead of low-concentration foods. Many people immediately choose the chocolate bar over the carrot, because they have no perceived costs when eating the chocolate bar, while it should be the other way around.
Many European countries now focus on food in the schools. This is where we can reach the brains of the children at a young age. 10 years ago, many children here in Denmark would get candy once per day or once per week, but many parents have stopped that. Our home is probably a good example, we have stopped all candy and dessert-like foods, like cola, candy, corn flakes, chocolate, ice cream etc. Jam can be served in very small amounts or on special occasions etc., and the first question when picking what to do for dinner is always: Which vegetable should we base the menu on?
This has stopped weight growing, our daughter is normal weight (30-40% percentile of her age), and given us a lot more energy. It's great :-) But it required the full support of the kindergarten and the school, but that is certainly also the case. If parents send their kids to school with something sugary on the children's food, the school discusses that with the parents, so that it doesn't happen again, in order to avoid that the other children get envious. The local supermarkets focus on healthy food, so there is plenty of choice. And in the community it is generally not accepted to serve candy or sugar to the kids when they visit each other - although some haven't learned it, yet - still serving light-cordials etc.
It seems that the obesity curve has been reverted or is about to, in Denmark, as a consequence of everybody helping each other.
If a country wants to improve the national health statistics, there is no way around nannyism. That's the dilemma. From the current state, we cannot produce our way towards better statistics. |
