United Nations investigator said on Monday.
In a statement issued on the opening of the annual summit of the World Health Organisation (WHO), United Nations investigator, Belgian professor Olivier de Schutter calls for a global effort to tackle obesity:
“Unhealthy diets are now a greater threat to global health than tobacco. Just as the world came together to regulate the risks of tobacco, a bold framework convention on adequate diets must now be agreed,” he said.
…..In 2005, a U.N. convention on tobacco control aimed at reducing deaths and health problems caused by the product went into force after long negotiations under the umbrella of the WHO.
In a report to the rights council in 2012, de Schutter said a similar accord on food should include taxing unhealthy products, regulating food high in saturated fats, salt and sugar, and “cracking down on junk food advertising.”
Read more at Unhealthy diets greater threat to health than tobacco, says UN expert | Fox News.
I believe the United States has fallen to the fast food chains. I am a couple years younger than you, and when I look back at some pictures of people in the 1950’s and 1960’s everyone was thin, in shape, healthy looking. Now, everywhere I go, I see 10 to 20 cars lined up at the drive thru and when I see people out and about, they are the size of two 1950’s people. I am sure the diabetes, heart conditions and other food related illness will kill off the major population in 40 years. We will not have to go to war, we have lost the battle.
As a former UN insider, I have seen much baloney spewed out by its ‘experts’. This one (pun intended) takes the cake. What the world needs is less government interference in the market, not more. Take, for instance, the expert view in this article: “”Governments have…often been indifferent to what kind of calories are on offer, at what price, to whom they are made available, and how they are marketed.” And this: “… accord on food should include taxing unhealthy products, regulating food high in saturated fats, salt and sugar, and ‘cracking down on junk food advertising’.”
Inviting government to regulate what we choose to eat and drink is like inviting the devil to supper. Imagine officious bureaucrats poring over supermarket inventories and restaurant menus to locate gotcha tax targets. Or their minions dropping by at our homes to dish out homilies just as we sit down to eat. One must hate oneself sufficiently to go along with such moronic ideas.
You make a very good point …the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
How would you suggest that we combat the obesity epidemic?
Any problem can be addressed only when we know its cause. The obesity problem comes from the rising tensions of rapid urbanization. It is far less pronounced in rural areas and virtually non-existent among the poor.
Lucrative, high pressure urban occupations have combined with technological advancements that discourage physical human interaction. TV, computers, smart phones, Internet, social networking and, increasingly, robotics are defining and transforming our lifestyles. We travel less and less to meet others because it is far easier, and productive, to communicate with them remotely. We eat on the fly, even dress in our cars on way to work and in between meetings. We seek instant gratification of our material desires and are willing to pay the price of declining physical health. It is made easier by advancements in medical science, which offers a rising range of commercial alternatives to naturally healthy lifestyles. It is a generational transformation in an era of high technology. Indeed, obesity can become more pervasive in the future as robotics continues to advance, flooding the market with gadgets and devices that reduce the need for human labor and physical exertion even further.
This evolving 21st century ethos cannot be resolved with 20th century instruments of taxation, regulation and mother-knows-best governments. Doing so will imply reversing the technology revolution which is neither practical, nor desirable. Just as free markets reflect the voluntary freeplay of supply and demand, free individuals in open societies should be allowed to make the choices on their lifestyles willingly. Like everything else in life, moderation and self-restraint in what, when, how much and how often one eats comes from within. Governments can, at best, help spread knowledge on the pros and cons through education and information. Raising people’s pride in their bodies is infinitely better than scare-mongering. Public facilities like gyms, swimming pools, sports venues, trekking trails, etc., that raise the opportunities for physical exertion as a matter of pride and peer pressure will help more than government diktats and intrusions into family dining rooms.
I am in favor of less government, rather than more, but do feel that the campaign against tobacco usage has achieved positive outcomes, though more still needs to be done. We should be able to learn from the successes with tobacco and apply a similar strategy to diet-related health risks.
I agree that a poor diet is only one cause of obesity and that a lack of physical exercise plays just as big a part. In my childhood everyone lived on a 1/4 acre (1000m2) block and there was an on-going football or cricket game in someone’s backyard every day of the week. It saddens me to see children living in high-density housing, watching TV or playing computer games, rather than enjoying the outdoors. I believe this is a significant factor in childhood obesity.
Colin, the way to combat the obesity epidemic is to fight against the low fat diets that have been imposed on us by government and are killing tens of millions through metabolic syndrome. The problem with low fat diets is that the fat is replaced with simple carbs that kill. To understand how we got to this point is not easy but is available: first, read Dr. Uffe Ravnskov’s book on “Choleterol Myths” and go to thinks.com to understand the real science behind saturated fat, cholesterol and carbohydrates. Read Dr. Gerald Raevens’ book on Syndrome X (this is now called metabolic syndrome). To understand the role of government in the cholesterol myth read Gary Taubes “Good calories, Bad calories” and learn the role of the McGovern Senate Committee on Nutrition in the 70’s.
I am going to attempt a quick summary. No study has ever shown a connection between cholesterol and coronary heart disease. Seven large U.S. government studies have failed to show any connection except for one small lot of people with a genetic problem. While saturated fat does increase LDL slightly, the increase is in the (good) large fluffy LDL not the small deadly LDL you get from eating to many carbs. A high fat diet with carbs restricted to complex carbs lowers your cholesterol and triglycerides and raises your HDL.
This high fat diet is more in line with what people have traditionally eaten. Think of how your grandparents ate. Paul Dudley White, the noted cardiologist at the Harvard Med School, said that he did his Residency at the Mass General Hospital in Boston in 1926 and 27. White said they did not see a single heart attack victim during his entire residency. And this was when people ate meat as often as they could afford and cooked with lard and butter. Nobody was using polyunsaturated oils except what was in the corn they ate.
I know this is heresy but fructose raises your cholesterol. Ask any 2nd year biochemistry student what the liver makes cholesterol from. The answer is acetate and you get acetate from metabolizing fructose. And sugar (a disaccharide) produces glucose and fructose. Think of all the fat that has been replaced by these simple carbs in our foods over the last 35 years.
The average person doesn’t have the foggiest idea of what he should be eating thanks to all the government meddling in nutrition. H.L. Mencken once said that “..the job of every politician is to convince you that he has the answer to every problem”. And the obesity epidemic is the result of government meddling. So I hope the UN stays out of the way.
Sorry but this subject is a hot button for me.
Very good series on ABC a while back that supports your views.
ABC: Heart of the matter