Last Tuesday, The Climate and Health Alliance published a position paper, Fixing Food Together. The entire paper is excellent, and well worth your time reading. It’s also global Lifestyle Medicine Week, and today’s focus is nutrition.
In today’s Blog, I’m just going to pull out a few excerpts that relate to health that I think are worth wider attention and discussion:
The typical Irish dietary pattern is making many of us sick.On average, we under-consume fruit, vegetables,
wholegrains, legumes, nuts and seafood, and over-consume energy (calories), red and
processed meats, sugar, salt and fat. This has resulted in an ‘overconsumption-undernutrition’ paradox, a detrimental
dietary pattern largely driven by the increased consumption of ultra-processed foods that are typically low in fibre and important nutrients but high in saturated or trans fats, sugar and salt….three in ten people drink sugar-sweetened beverages at least once a week, with younger people and males more likely to drink them every day.High intakes among children are particularly worrying, as they are associ ated with weight gain, obesity, type two diabetes, heart disease, kidney diseases, tooth decay and more.at least 80% of premature cardiovascular disease (CVD) and type two diabetes is preventable through
lifestyle change alone, in which a healthy diet plays an important role. In addition to the individual suffering it causes, poor diet is also associated with astronomical costs of up to €4.3 billion per year in healthcare, lost productivity and informal care.The underlying assumption of this theory is that ‘we are gaining too much weight because we are too lazy to exercise, and too ignorant
to eat healthily, or if we do know how to eat healthily but still resort to ultraprocessed foods, we deserve to be miserable and sick’.This makes the ‘consumer
responsibility’ model morally questionable. Firstly, it markets itself as giving ‘freedom of choice’, and then blames individuals when they make the ‘wrong’ choice.
This can be seen in the stigma attached to obesity and the choices many lowincome households are forced to make. Secondly, the ‘consumer responsibility’
model largely absolves food industries and regulators of the responsibility to support people to make food choices that benefit their health and the health of the
environment.Food choices are not simply made of our own volition. Numerous studies demonstrate that most people know what makes a healthy diet. The problem is, from
a biological perspective, we have been conditioned to seek out calorie-dense food because it was so rare and important throughout evolution to ensure our survival. It is very difficult to resist the taste of sugary, salty or fatty foods because our appetite hormones are generally more powerful than our cognitive reasoning or ‘willpower’.
Furthermore, when we eat ultra-processed foods that are high in fat, sugar or salt, it takes our hormones longer to send satiety signals to let us know we are satiated.
Outside of our own biology, powerful, physical, economic, political and sociocultural forces shape our food environment, which is often described as the
interface between people and food systems These forces, called the commercial determinants of health, include factors like affordability, availability, convenience and marketing, and most of them are beyond our own control.In Ireland, it is now estimated that almost half (45.9%) of Irish household food purchases are ultra-processed. This is a major cause for concern
because there is accumulating evidence that strongly links the regular consumption of ultra-processed foods with an increased risk of many chronic diseases such as heart disease, obesity and cancer.A healthy and sustainable diet is also less accessible and desirable for many cohorts
of our society;
Fresh food is generally more expensive, and a healthy food basket can cost a
low-income family over a third (35%) of their weekly income.4
Sustainable diets are often at odds with wider environmental determinants of
health with, for example, people from more deprived communities being more
exposed to the marketing and promotion of foods high in fat, sugar and salt.
Many people may never have tasted more diverse protein sources like
beans, lentils or soya products and may not know how to use them, and this
makes them less desirable than familiar foods.
All these considerations have the potential to deepen health inequalities and create
a less just society.
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