A Billion People Are Obese While A Billion People Go Hungry
If ever the planet can ever solve the enormous problems of food distribution and consumption, we will look back on the present period with great dismay. Recent reports indicate that the global economic downturn has pushed at least an additional 100 million people into hunger, bringing the total to more than 1 billion worldwide. What a terrible irony then that this same number of people worldwide suffers from obesity.
It goes without saying that hunger afflicts those in the worst prevailing conditions on the planet, where war and severe poverty abound. Terrible suffering and loss of life occur at this end of the nutrition spectrum and as an affluent society we must work to end this problem and this suffering.
At the other end of the spectrum obesity shortens life and leads to serious health problems. Because of the cultural, genetic and environmental factors that lead to obesity, combating it proves to be an extremely difficult proposition both individually and societal. But the battle against obesity is winnable at all levels if we become determined and set our minds to a long-term solution.
These strikingly different problems at the opposite ends of the spectrum of nutritional intake remind us that there is ample food and nutrition supply to go around. The simultaneous persistence of these two problems lead one to believe there must be solutions that could solve both.
Tags: hunger, obesity, world health
