캐나다 토론토에 소재한 요크대학교에서 정치경제학을 강의하다가 현재는 정년 퇴임을 한 맑스주의 정치경제학자 로버트 앨브리튼(Robert Albritton) 교수가 2009년에 펴낸 [Let Them Eat Junk : How Capitalism Creates Hunger and Obesity] 목차와 인터뷰입니다.

로버트 앨브리튼 교수는 자신의 아내가 토론토에 소재한 라이슨대학교(Ryerson University)에서 식품영양학 교수로 강의하고 있기 때문에 자본주의 체제의 식품산업에 관심을 가지게 되었다고 합니다.

그는 최근 [Socialist Register](Vol 46)에 “비만과 굶주림 사이에서 : 자본주의 식품 산업(Between obesity and hunger: the capitalist food industry)”이라는 아래와 같은 글을 기고하기도 했습니다.

=======================

Socialist Register, Vol 46
     
Between obesity and hunger: the capitalist food industry
Robert Albritton
 
http://socialistregister.com/index.php/srv/article/view/6770

Abstract

We live in a world capable, in principle, of providing a diverse and healthy diet for all, and yet one quarter of its people suffer from frequent hunger and ill health generated by a diet that is poor in quantity or quality or both. Another quarter of the world’s population eats too much food, food that is often heavy with calories and low on nutrients (colloquially called ‘junk food’). This quarter of the world’s population risks diabetes and all of the other chronic illnesses generated by obesity. Study after study in recent years has come to the conclusion that the single most important factor in human health is diet, and diet is something we can shape.
Cheap food is important to capitalism because it allows wages to be lower (and thus profits to be higher) and yet leave workers with more disposable income available to buy other commodities. In this short essay most of my examples come from the US, because, as the most hegemonic capitalist power in the world, it has done the most to shape the global food system. But I don’t want to give the impression that there is one tightly integrated capitalist world food system. Even in the US, capitalism has not entirely subsumed the whole food system, and while there are few places in the world untouched by capitalism, its degree of hegemony may vary a great deal. Still, up to the present, capitalism has been the single strongest force shaping the global food system, and much of that shaping power has flowed outward from the US.

=======================

Let Them Eat Junk : How Capitalism Creates Hunger and Obesity
Robert Albritton / Pluto Press / 2009

A thorough explanation of how the capitalist system creates simultaneous hunger and obesity
 
This is the first book to analyse the food industry from a Marxist perspective.Respected economist Robert Albritton argues that the capitalist system, far from delivering on the promise of cheap, nutritious food for all, has created a world where 25% of the world population are over-fed and 25% are hungry. This malnourishment of 50% of the world’s population is explained systematically, a refreshing change from accounts that focus on cultural factors and individual greed. Albritton details the economic relations and connections that have put us in a situation of simultaneous oversupply and undersupply of food.This explosive book provides yet more evidence that the human cost of capitalism is much bigger than those in power will admit.

 
Table of Contents

Preface
1 Introduction
2 Capital’s Deep Structures, Agriculture, and Food
3 The Phase of Consumerism and the Roots of the Current Agriculture and Food Regimes
4 The Food System and Consumer’s Health
5 The Health of Agriculture and Food Workers
6 Agriculture, Food, and the Environment
7 Food, Marketing and Choice
8 Food, Power, and Liberal Democracy
9 Possible Changes That May Become Feasible Changes
Notes
Index

=========================

Capitalism and food: Let them eat junk

An interview with Rob Albritton

출처 : http://links.org.au/node/1616

March 2010 — Rob Albritton’s Let Them Eat Junk: How Capitalism Creates Hunger and Obesity (2009), published by Arbeiter Ring Press in Canada and Pluto Press in the UK, offers a welcome and urgently needed analysis of “how the profit fixation of capital has led us deeply into a dangerously unsustainable system of food provision, a system that totally fails when it comes to distributive justice and to human and environmental health” (p. 201). His analysis takes us inside capitalism and shows how its “deep structures” manage our agricultural and food systems in irrational ways.

Socialist Project’s Relay magazine recently asked John Simoulidis to interview Robert Albritton about his book and current global struggles to address the failures of our agriculture/food system. Posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with permission.

* * *
You have written a number of books on Marxist theory and political economy: why a book on food?

When I retired from York University’s political science department after teaching political theory and political economy for 36 years, I had more time to do research and writing. Previously most of my work was very theoretical, and I decided it was time to direct my attention to something more down to earth.

I had many influences directing my attention toward food, not the least of which was my wife’s career teaching food and nutrition at Ryerson University in Toronto. Now that I was retired, I could devote most of my waking hours to researching and writing this book on the food system – a topic that turned out to be far more extensive than my initial expectations. Indeed, the more I researched the topic, the more I discovered the numerous interconnections among our ecological crises, our social and physical health crises, our economic crisis and our global food system.

The focus on the impact that capitalism has on food and agriculture is a particularly rich source if we want to make connections between the struggles for socialism and the struggles for ecological sustainability. I hope my book can contribute to a growing wake-up call that will bring about a refocus of human intelligence and material wealth toward reshaping the food system and the capitalist economy that it is embedded in.

There are various and recently published books and articles offering critiques of the corporate control of the food system. What can readers expect to find in your book that is lacking in other critiques?

After 40 years of studying capitalism, I believe that no single work makes more headway in grasping its inner logic and inner dynamic than Marx’s Capital. It was this work more than any other that guided me in my central aim, which was to understand how capitalism has shaped our food system.

It follows that the first difference between this book and others written on the topic of food is that I am not aware of any other food book that explicitly bases its theoretical framework (many do not have theoretical frameworks) on Marx’s Capital. Second, no other food book has as broad a scope as this one. Third, no other food book has as much factual information. Fourth and finally, the above three points are combined in a way that makes this book the most radical critique of the capitalist food system yet written. This is because it seeks out connections between the food crisis and the other crises of advanced capitalism, and it illustrates that capital’s indifference to use-value is particularly destructive when capitalism subsumes and commodifies the food system.

What were some of the most interesting and/or surprising discoveries you made while researching and writing this book?

I was shocked by many things. I’ll mention a few.

First, I was impressed by the immense power of the sugar industry. Sugar is one of the cheapest, the most addictive and most profitable of food inputs. As a result more and more of it goes into much of our processed foods, even though it is the prime suspect in the current global diabetes epidemic. Efforts to place constraints on its use have mostly failed, despite a fledgling international “dump soft drinks” campaign led by the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

Second, while I knew in a general way that the global distribution of food leaves many people struggling with hunger and malnutrition, I was not aware that globally nearly half the population makes $2 or less a day, and that approximately 1 billion people are mentally impaired due to malnutrition.

Finally, our food system spreads toxins in the environment; has played the major role in deforestation, the running down of water supplies and the degradation of land; is a huge contributor to global warming; and is rapidly depleting the remaining reserves of fossil fuels. In short, it not only undermines human health, but also is leading us toward ecological disaster.

What are some of the major themes that you address? What are some of the major failures associated with an agricultural/food system controlled by capital’s “deep structures”?

The title could be misleading without an understanding of the reference to Marie Antoinette’s “Let them eat cake.” In my interpretation “junk food” epitomises capitalist food in this phase of history, and junk food is high in sugars, fats and salts, while being low in other nutrients. My book does not focus narrowly on junk food, but on a food system whose cutting edge has been junk food and whose largest corporations tend to be centred in the US, expanding outward to the rest of the world. The main themes of the book are the food system’s failure to advance human health, environmental health or social justice; and the connections between the food crisis and the myriad of other crises characteristic of late capitalism.
Rational behaviour under capitalism requires that capitalists continually shift production from goods and services that are unprofitable (and will, in due course plunge them into bankruptcy) to goods and services that are profitable. Since competition forces them to maximise short-term profits, it is this quantitative focus and not the quality of use values that becomes the overriding goal.

For example, if a capitalist learns that by adding more sugar to baby food, profits will increase both because sugar is a very cheap input and because babies will eat more baby food and later adults will eat more sugar, then a rational capitalist would do this, despite many studies that show a craving for sugar that borders on addiction can be established very early in children through a diet of sugar dense foods.

The capitalist cannot afford to be concerned with the lifetime of obesity and connected illnesses that such a diet might generate. In short, in order to be rational, a capitalist needs to focus on profits (quantity) and not the quality of life of humans (or use values) unless that quality can be easily converted into profits. Similarly, if the market for palm oil is profitable, and the easiest way to expand its production is to cut down the remaining rainforests of South East Asia, then a rational capitalist would not hesitate to do this.

Finally, if capitalist farmers profit from paying low wages to undocumented field workers, then any capitalist farmer who does not do this is likely to lose out to the competition. Unfortunately these and many other destructive trends are all too current.

How does the crisis in the food system relate to the broader economic and ecological crises of the current phase of neoliberal capitalism? How will its impacts be felt and distributed globally?

The food crisis feeds the other crises which in turn feed it. The North American food system is so dependent upon fossil fuels that it has been estimated that all known fossil fuel reserves would be exhausted in seven years were the whole world to adopt the US system. Indeed, at approximately one-third of the total, the food system contributes more to global warming than any other sector of the economy. At the same time global warming will reduce crop yields due to extreme weather and higher temperatures.

Further, to mention only two of the many causes of pollution: the massive petrochemical inputs of agriculture coupled with the pollution of bodies of fresh water by confined animal feeding operations make the capitalist food system a major contributor to the toxification of the environment, which is now reaching alarming levels.

Finally, given the petroleum dependency of the food system, the price of food will go up with the price of petroleum, and the use of food crop land for ethanol production will only push food prices yet higher. Declining yields due to global warming and extreme weather will also increase food prices. Without action now these price increases will soon be disastrous for the 40 per cent of global population that lives on $2 or less a day.

Your reply addresses how capitalism creates hunger. Can you explain how it at the same time produces obesity?

The producers of junk food that profit from the ease with which people become quasi-addicted to sugar, fat and salt provide consumers with lots of calories but few nutrients. Hooked on junk food and lacking the income to afford more nutritious food, people consume too many calories and not enough nutrients. This is a recipe for obesity, a weakened immune system, and ultimately illness and death. A report published by the American Medical Association claims that if current practices continue, one-third of US children born in the year 2000 will get diabetes.

Even more serious than what some have called the “pandemic of obesity” is the hunger and malnutrition suffered by over a billion people in the world. It has been estimated that during each half hour an average of 360 children under the age of five die of starvation or hunger-related illnesses.

Perhaps the most challenging part of your book for readers not familiar with Marx’s Capital or the Unoist approach that informs your theoretical work concerns the two chapters in part 2 of your book where you provide an outline of “capitalism in the abstract and general” and “consumerism” as a phase of capitalism. Can you elaborate briefly on why this kind of theoretical work is necessary in order to understand the global and local failures of the agriculture/food system?
The more abstract level of analysis clarifies the basic features of fully developed capitalism: showing how it subsumes social relations while deepening and expanding itself.

Capital’s abstract dynamic is present in history to the extent that capitalism is. At the same time capital is constrained and/or supported by historically specific structures and agencies that shape it and are shaped by it. The abstract level of analysis brings out the reasons why even when capitalism is functioning at its competitive best, its management of a fully capitalist agricultural/food system is likely to manifest significant contradictions and irrationalities. My mid-range level of analysis illustrates the form that these irrationalities take in the phase of consumerism after World War II. Finally, these two higher levels of analysis help us to understand the evolving food system over the past 20 years or so.

One can easily list large numbers of alarming facts about current tendencies associated with the capitalist food system, but theory helps us to weigh the importance of the facts, to understand their interconnections, and hence to understand the most important forces shaping and being shaped by the food system. The better we understand how the current system operates, the more effective our strategies of transformation.

You describe the current phase of capitalism in terms of a “capitalist command economy”. Can you briefly explain what this means and how it frames the issues you raise in the concluding chapter of your book on “the fight for democracy, social justice, health and sustainability”?

The food industry always emphasises the enormous choice it offers the modern consumer, but this is an illusion.

First of all because most people in the world are too poor to buy any but the cheapest of foods. Second, those that have the money are confronted with a huge array of processed foods that are largely re-arrangements of soy, corn, fat, sugar and salt. If you are allergic to GM soy, you will have to avoid the majority of processed foods since so many of them contain soy and soy by-products, and there is no labelling requirement for GMOs. Third, food indoctrination is so widespread and powerful that most food choices are already heavily conditioned by the toxic food environment and its powerful marketing techniques. Fourth, nearly all foods in the typical supermarket are the products of a few huge corporations (for example, Nestlé and Kraft).

During the “Cold War”, Western economists often sharply contrasted “totalitarian command economies”, characteristic of the communist bloc, with “free market economies”, characteristic of the capitalist bloc. Today, the world capitalist economy ought to be labelled a “corporate command economy” because large corporations run by small elites have way too much unaccountable power to command the future of humanity.

Markets are now largely planning instruments utilised by corporations for creating both supply and demand. Large profits are made even when much larger social costs (externalities not included in market prices) will need to be paid by taxpayers and future generations.

While in reality most markets have never worked as pictured by the ideal of optimality that many economists have presupposed, now this ideal is so deeply ingrained that it can still be used to justify “free markets” when in reality we more and more see the corporate use of markets as planning mechanisms to maximise their short-term profits while creating huge long-range costs to society. These social costs can be viewed as debts that future generations will have to pay whether they are economic debts, ecological debts or health debts.

We need to turn this around, and we need to do it fast. This will require clearing our minds of the free market myth, so that we can begin to consciously use markets as democratic planning mechanisms to advance human and environmental wellbeing. Besides democratising markets, we also need to democratise corporations and governments. Democratising corporations means making their decision making transparent so that they can be held accountable by the public. The first step in democratising governments is to find ways of preventing them being held for ransom by giant corporations.

In the current circumstances, it is particularly important to democratise the labour market. There will always be unmet social needs, and therefore there should always be jobs to meet those needs. Existing labour markets are extremely ineffective ways of mobilising human energies to meet human needs. Computer technology could be utilised to find new ways of prioritising social needs and of mobilising the human intelligence and material wealth to meet them. Anyone who wants to work and is able to work should never be unemployed unless it is to gain skills needed to meet particular needs, and such education should be subsidised.

Finally, and this will perhaps be the most difficult, we need to find ways to redistribute wealth globally in order to advance the equality that is necessary for democracy to be effective, and for freedom to have any meaning. Democratising markets, corporations and governments is, in my opinion, not a “middle way” that compromises its soul to neoliberalism, it is the best way forward that I can think of – a way that offers a just and humane way out of the myriad of crises that confront us.

[Rob Albritton is professor emeritus at York University, Toronto, and the author of Economics Transformed: Discovering the Brilliance of Marx (2007) and contributed an article to the recent issue of Socialist Register (2010), “Morbid symptoms: Health under capitalism”. This article first appeared in the January-March 2010 edition of Relay, Socialist Project’s magazine. It is posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with permission. To download a PDF of the latest edition Relay click HERE.]

Obesity and overweight

What are overweight and obesity?

Related links :: WHO Global Infobase :: WHO Global Database on Body Mass Index (BMI) :: WHO Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health :: WHO Child Growth Standards :: WHO Department of Chronic Diseases and Health Promotion :: WHO Department of Nutrition for Health and Development

Overweight and obesity are defined as abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that may impair health.

Body mass index (BMI) is a simple index of weight-for-height that is commonly used in classifying overweight and obesity in adult populations and individuals. It is defined as the weight in kilograms divided by the square of the height in meters (kg/m2).

BMI provides the most useful population-level measure of overweight and obesity as it is the same for both sexes and for all ages of adults. However, it should be considered as a rough guide because it may not correspond to the same degree of fatness in different individuals.

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines “overweight” as a BMI equal to or more than 25, and “obesity” as a BMI equal to or more than 30. These cut-off points provide a benchmark for individual assessment, but there is evidence that risk of chronic disease in populations increases progressively from a BMI of 21.

The new WHO Child Growth Standards, launched in April 2006, include BMI charts for infants and young children up to age 5. However, measuring overweight and obesity in children aged 5 to 14 years is challenging because there is not a standard definition of childhood obesity applied worldwide. WHO is currently developing an international growth reference for school-age children and adolescents.

Facts about overweight and obesity

WHO’s latest projections indicate that globally in 2005:

• approximately 1.6 billion adults (age 15+) were overweight;
  
• at least 400 million adults were obese.

WHO further projects that by 2015, approximately 2.3 billion adults will be overweight and more than 700 million will be obese.

At least 20 million children under the age of 5 years are overweight globally in 2005.

Once considered a problem only in high-income countries, overweight and obesity are now dramatically on the rise in low- and middle-income countries, particularly in urban settings.

What causes obesity and overweight?

The fundamental cause of obesity and overweight is an energy imbalance between calories consumed on one hand, and calories expended on the other hand. Global increases in overweight and obesity are attributable to a number of factors including:

• a global shift in diet towards increased intake of energy-dense foods that are high in fat and sugars but low in vitamins, minerals and other micronutrients; and
  
• a trend towards decreased physical activity due to the increasingly sedentary nature of many forms of work, changing modes of transportation, and increasing urbanization.

What are common health consequences of overweight and obesity?

Overweight and obesity lead to serious health consequences. Risk increases progressively as BMI increases. Raised body mass index is a major risk factor for chronic diseases such as:

• Cardiovascular disease (mainly heart disease and stroke) – already the world’s number one cause of death, killing 17 million people each year.
  
• Diabetes – which has rapidly become a global epidemic. WHO projects that diabetes deaths will increase by more than 50% worldwide in the next 10 years.
  
• Musculoskeletal disorders – especially osteoarthritis.
  
• Some cancers (endometrial, breast, and colon).

Childhood obesity is associated with a higher chance of premature death and disability in adulthood.

Many low- and middle-income countries are now facing a “double burden” of disease:

• While they continue to deal with the problems of infectious disease and under-nutrition, at the same time they are experiencing a rapid upsurge in chronic disease risk factors such as obesity and overweight, particularly in urban settings.
  
• It is not uncommon to find under-nutrition and obesity existing side-by-side within the same country, the same community and even within the same household.
  
• This double burden is caused by inadequate pre-natal, infant and young child nutrition followed by exposure to high-fat, energy-dense, micronutrient-poor foods and lack of physical activity.

How can the burden of overweight and obesity be reduced?

Overweight and obesity, as well as their related chronic diseases, are largely preventable.

At the individual level, people can:

• achieve energy balance and a healthy weight;
  
• limit energy intake from total fats and shift fat consumption away from saturated fats to unsaturated fats;
  
• increase consumption of fruit and vegetables, as well as legumes, whole grains and nuts;
  
• limit the intake of sugars; and
  
• increase physical activity – at least 30 minutes of regular, moderate-intensity activity on most days. More activity may be required for weight control.

The implementation of these recommendations requires sustained political commitment and the collaboration of many stakeholders, public and private. Governments, international partners, civil society and nongovernmental organizations and the private sector have vital roles to play in shaping healthy environments and making healthier diet options affordable and easily accessible. This is especially important for the most vulnerable in society – the poor and children – who have limited choices about the food they eat and the environments in which they live.

Initiatives by the food industry to reduce the fat, sugar and salt content of processed foods and portion sizes, to increase introduction of innovative, healthy, and nutritious choices, and to review current marketing practices could accelerate health gains worldwide.

WHO’s strategy for preventing overweight and obesity

Adopted by the World Health Assembly in 2004, the WHO Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health describes the actions needed to support the adoption of healthy diets and regular physical activity. The Strategy calls upon all stakeholders to take action at global, regional and local levels and aims to lead to a significant reduction in the prevalence of chronic diseases and their common risk factors, primarily unhealthy diet and physical inactivity.

WHO’s work on diet and physical activity is part of the overall WHO chronic disease prevention and control framework of the Department of Chronic Diseases and Health Promotion. The strategic objectives of the department are to: advocate for health promotion and chronic disease prevention and control; promote health, especially for poor and disadvantaged populations; slow and reverse the adverse trends in the common chronic disease risk factors; and prevent premature deaths and avoidable disability due to major chronic diseases.

This work is complemented by that of the Department of Nutrition for Health and Development. The strategic objectives of the department are to promote healthy diets and improve the nutritional status of the population throughout the life course, particularly among the vulnerable. This is achieved by providing support to countries in developing and implementing national intersectoral Food and Nutrition Policies and Programmes to address double-burden of nutrition-related ill-health, and to contribute to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

For more information contact:

WHO Media centre
Telephone: +41 22 791 2222
E-mail: mediainquiries@who.int

출처 : 국제통상연구소 해외통상자료
http://www.tdi.or.kr/bbs/board.php?bo_table=alternative_forum&wr_id=52

우리 생각과 다르게 검은 아프리카에는 영양실조로 고통받는 사람들보다 비만 인구가 3배나 더 많은 나라들도 있다. 그렇다고 영양실조 문제가 완전히 해결된 것도 아니다. 왜 이런 아이러니한 일이 생기는 걸까? 이유는 바로 무역자유화에 따른 정크푸드와 같은 고지방과 고당도 식품섭취량이 증가되었기 때문이다. 이처럼 무역자유화는 가공식품과 고지방, 고당도 식품의 섭취량을 증가시켜 비만과 만성질환을 발생시키는 이른바, “영양상태의 전환(nutrition transition)”을 급속히 진행시킨다. 미국과 자유무역협정을 체결한 국가들에서 이러한 현상이 더욱 심하게 나타난다. 최근 이러한 현상에 대해 중아아메리카 지역을 대상으로 분석한 “식품과 건강에 대한 무역자유화의 연관”이라는 논문이 온라인 저널 세계화와 보건(Globalization and Health)에서 발표되었다.

이 논문은 중앙아메리카 국가들은 지난 20년 동안 광범위한 무역자유화를 시행해 왔으며, 최근 미국과의 자유무역협정인 CAFTA를 체결하여 영양부족과 영양상태의 전환이라는 이중적 부담이 가중되고 있다는 것이다. 그리고 지난 20년간 통상정책이 어떻게 식품수입량과 가용도에 영향을 미쳤는지에 대해 세 가지 경로를 통해 설명하고 있다. 첫째, 통상장벽의 축소가 다양한 식품의 수입량을 촉진시켜 식품 가용도를 향상시켰다고 한다. 예를 들자면, 과테말라 정부는 1996년 가금류에 대한 관세할당량을 두배로 올리는 정책과 관세할당 한도내 물량에 대한 관세(In-Quota Tariff)를 15% 감소시키자 그 수입량이 급속히 증가한 결과를 <그림1>에서 확인할 수 있다. 이러한 무역자유화조치는 이 지역내의 쌀, 동물사료와 신선한 사과의 가용도를 꾸준히 증가시킨다는 것이다. 둘째, 무역자유화는 국내육류생산을 촉진을 통해 식품 가용도에 영향을 미친다. 셋째, 투자장벽의 축소는 가공식품시장의 확장에 있어 중요한 요소이다. 실제 1985년부터 2000년까지 미국과 중앙아메리카 사이의 관세는 하락했고, 가공치즈 수입은 3,215% 증가되었고, 특히 가공치즈-유화제와 과다한 소금, 색료와 유청 혹은 훼이가 포함된-는 오늘날 미국에서 수출되는 치즈의 37%를 차지하고 있다.

따라서, 이 연구는 미국과 관련된 지난 20년간의 중앙아메리카에서 무역자유화정책은 가공식품과 고지방, 고당도 식품의 가용도를 증가시키고 이 지역의 건강에 영향을 주었다는 것을 보여준다. 특히 여기에는 비만이나 심장병과 암 같은 만성적인 질환을 증가시키는 ‘영향상태의 전환’을 촉진시키는 요인이 있다는 것이다. 개개인과 보다 넓은 공동체의 만성적인 질환에 대한 의료보험체계에 심각한 손실이 있더라도, 이제는 비만과 관련된 영양부족에 대한 거시적 예방의료조치가 필요하다는 것이다.

미국의 뉴스통신사 UPI의 “Free trade spreading obesity”라는 기사에 의하면, 완화된 통상 규칙의 일부분으로서 미국의 정크 푸드의 중앙 아메리카 유입은 중앙아메리카인들의 비만과 관련된 질병을 유발시키고 있다고 전한다. 그 예로 (무역자유화이후) 치즈 가공품의 수입이 3,000%이상 증가되었다고 한다. 이 논문을 인용하며, 갑작스러운 가공식품과 고지방, 고당도 식품의 가용성은 중앙아메리카의 “영양상태의 전환(nutrition transition)”을 발생시키고 있다. 영양상태의 전환은 과일, 채소 그리고 모든 곡물류와 같이 비타민, 미네랄 그리고 미량영양소가 풍부한 식품이 설탕이 첨가되고, 지방과 염류에 절인 식품으로 대체될 때 일어난다. 이런 경향은 산업국가들로부터 식량을 수입하는 개도국에 영향을 미치며, 이런 기아와 관련한 영양결핍과 싸워온 이런 국가들이 이제는 비만과 관련된 영양결핍에 대응해야 한다고 한다.

UPI: Free trade spreading obesity

출처 : UPI통신 July 27
 http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2009/07/27/Study-Free-trade-spreading-obesity/UPI-68871248735660/

SYDNEY, July 27 (UPI) — An influx of U.S. junk food into Central America as part of relaxed trade rules has led to Central American obesity and related illnesses, a study said Monday.

Processed-cheese imports, for instance, have risen more than 3,000 percent, the two-university study found.

A sudden availability of processed, high-fat and high-sugar foods has created a “nutrition transition” in Central American countries, the university researchers writing the journal Globalization and Health said.

A nutrition transition happens when foods rich in vitamins, minerals and micronutrients such as fruits, vegetables and whole grains are substituted by foods heavy in added sugar, saturated fat and sodium.

The trend affects developing countries importing foods from industrial countries, researchers say. These countries, struggling with malnutrition associated with hunger, now also deal with malnutrition associated with obesity.

As tariffs between the United States and Central American countries fell from 1985 to 2000, processed-cheese imports rose 3,215 percent, researchers Anne Marie Thow of the University of Sydney and Corinna Hawkes of Brazil’s University of Sao Paulo said.

Processed cheese — which includes emulsifiers, extra salt, food colorings and milk plasma or whey — made up 37 percent of all cheese imports from the United States in those years, the researchers said.

French fries made up 23 percent of all imports of fruits and vegetables, they said.

<기사보기>

첨부자료 : 보고서 (The implications of trade liberalization for diet and health : a case study from Central America)