Are Global Market Forces Linked to Obesity?

From HealthDay News.

"Nations with open trade policies have greater densities of fast food restaurants and higher rates of obesity than those with more trade controls, a new study has found.

"It's not by chance that countries with the highest obesity rates and fast food restaurants are those in the forefront of market liberalization, such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, versus countries like Japan and Norway, with more regulated and restrictive trade policies," lead researcher Roberto De Vogli, an associate professor in the University of Michigan School of Public Health, said in a university news release.

For example, the analysis of data from 26 wealthy nations showed that the United States has 7.5 fast food restaurants per 100,000 people, and the density in Canada is 7.4 per 100,000. Obesity rates in the United States are 31 percent for men and 33 percent for women, and obesity rates in Canada are about 23 percent for men and women.

In comparison, Japan has 0.13 fast food restaurants per 100,000 people and Norway has 0.19 per 100,000 people. Obesity rates in Japan are 2.9 percent for men and 3.3 percent for women. Obesity rates in Norway are 6.4 percent for men and 5.9 percent for women, according to the study published in the December issue of the journal Critical Public Health.

The effect that market forces have on obesity is largely overlooked, according to De Vogli.

"In my opinion, the public debate is too much focused on individual genetics and other individual factors, and overlooks the global forces in society that are shaping behaviors worldwide. If you look at trends over time for obesity, it's shocking," he said in the news release.

"Since the 1980s, since the advent of trade liberalization policies that have indirectly . . . promoted transnational food companies . . . we see rates that have tripled or quadrupled. There is no biological, genetic, psychological or community level factor that can explain this. Only a global type of change can explain this," De Vogli stated."

Okay, let's try this one: what else has gone global in the last few decades besides fast food? Try PROCESSED FOODS, like Kraft, for one. I can't think of a single product of Kraft's that doesn't include grains in it. Processed food manufacturers have amped up the amounts of sugar and salt in their products over the years, and even more just recently in light of proposed (but failed) legislation regulating the amount of salt in their products--that way, if they had to cut back, they wouldn't lose taste or customer base.

We subsidize grains and fattening oils, food processors turn this boon into a global powerhouse, and voila! Obesity is spread. Fast food has little to nothing to do with it, because few can afford it overseas. Let me give you an example: in Italy, when I lived there, a Big Mac meal in Rome (at the time, the only Mickey D's in the area) was $9.00 and something--here, you could get the same food for less than $5, and the only patrons I saw in there were Americans. Now, a decade later, and a commodity boom later, what do you think happened to the price of that Big Mac meal (both here and abroad)?

If people overseas couldn't afford it then, they REALLY can't afford it now!

For what it's worth, I could get a decent burger made with beer in the meat, topped with a fried egg, and served with homemade fries and iced tea for less than what a trip to Rome Mickey D's cost me, and the pub I found it at was only a couple of blocks from my Italy apartment. The pub owner/cook was German, and man could he cook! I saw all kinds of people at his place--young, old, American, Italian, German, you name it.