Humans have long battled with food. For most of our time here on earth, it was a shortage that caused us great illnesses and eventually death. Our inability to farm in certain climates, store and preserve foods, along with our complex human dietary needs made it difficult to properly nourish ourselves. We saw countless lives lost to malnutrition and starvation. And now, we're also seeing countless live lost to malnutrition, but of another ilk: for the first time in recorded history, obesity is claiming more lives than starvation.
The Global Burden of Disease report recently published in the British medical journal The Lancet found what's being called a massive shift in global health trends. According to Ali Mokdad, co-author of the study and professor of global health at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, which led the collaborative project, “We discovered that there’s been a huge shift in mortality. Kids who used to die from infectious disease are now doing extremely well with immunization," but, she added, "the world is now obese and we’re seeing the impact of that.”
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But what's trending around the world is what's been dubbed 'the Western lifestyle'-a diet focused on fast, processed junk foods high in saturated fats, sodium, sugar and artificial ingredients. Diets high in Western-type foods are resulting in what Dr. T. Colin Campbell ("The China Study") calls "diseases of affluence": heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer. While the Western diet invariably leads to weight gain, it's also a huge cause of malnutrition. Foods high in calories, like fast food meals, are void of crucial vitamins, minerals and other vital nutrients, leading to deficiencies and diseases.
Alarming Obesity Rates
According to the Global Burden of Disease report, which included 500 researchers in 50 countries, every country except for those in sub-Saharan Africa are facing "alarming" obesity rates, increasing by more than 80 percent in just two decades. The report found that recently developed parts of the Middle East are now seeing a 100 percent increase in obesity over 1990.
While life expectancy continues to rise around the world-on average, 10.7 more years for men, and 12.6 more years for women-quality of life in those extra years are being burdened by chronic illnesses and disabilities related to obesity. And in Western countries, while deaths from heart disease are down by 70 percent, the number of people diagnosed with the disease is increasing at alarming rates. "All these problems are tied to obesity," Mokdad said.
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And it's also coming at quite a pricetag. Obesity-related illnesses in the U.S. and Canada are expected to cost $300 billion per year.
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Photo credit: Phillie Casablanca
