Bruce Bisset: Light wallets add up to big waists

Seems to me the average human is quickly becoming super-sized not because of how much we eat but what we eat.

Obesity certainly is a growing problem. In what some are now calling a pandemic, 65 per cent of countries have more deaths from obesity than malnutrition, and spend between 2 and 6 per cent of healthcare costs on obesity-related illness.

But while rich, developed nations are top of the pile in cardiovascular malfunctions and diabetes and other weight-related disease as a result, most poor countries are also now spending increasing percentages of their health dollars coping with obese citizens and their problems.

And to a large extent the evidence of cause points not to overeating or lack of exercise so much as the type of food the world now consumes.

In a nutshell, we eat far too much processed adulterated muck and far too little wholesome natural food.

So instead of getting the goodness our bodies need in ways that are easy to absorb, we get rubbish that pleasures our tastebuds but provides little actual nourishment - except perhaps a burst of false energy.

See, food manufacturers like to maximise profits, like any other businesses, so they load their products with salt, sugar, and fat (as well as any number of chemical "enhancers") to make it more "palatable" and more addictive.

It's cheaper to mass produce such consumer products than it is to market healthy natural foods, and because the instant gratification reflex kicks in (as it's designed to) we gobble far too much low-value fare.

Then, five minutes later, we're hungry for more - because despite the fancy labels assuring us it has X-amount of what we need each day, the body is not fooled; the real nutritional value of processed food is disturbingly low.

What doesn't go straight out the other end is not properly absorbed either, instead accumulating as fatty deposits in unflattering places.

Now, it's true the biggest consumers of junk food are the wealthiest nations, and also the largest by body-mass index; that doyen of consumption, the US, is predicted to have one in two people classified as obese by 2030.

Britain - and New Zealand too for that matter - is not far behind; one in three, for us.

It's true too that our increasingly sedentary modern lifestyle is a major contributing factor; we need to stop sitting on our bums watching screens and become more active to keep the weight from piling up. But a raft of new studies referenced by British medical journal The Lancet places much blame on the nature of modern food itself.

Which explains why it is now not uncommon, in poorer countries, to witness examples of obesity and malnutrition not only in the same neighbourhood but in the same household.

Not that this should come as any surprise; the crucial thing is what we do about it. The World Health Organisation says governments need to take a lead by using legislation and direct intervention to create a better environment, and that there are many measures - including taxes on unhealthy food, restrictions on junk food advertising, traffic light labelling and school-based education programmes - which would save money as well as benefit health.

Some researchers have likened the modern processed food industry to the tobacco industry in terms of getting people addicted to their products and in blocking attempts to discourage consumption, and noted there is more willingness to invest in drugs and surgery than to deal with the underlying causes.

Food prices are already going through the roof, despite processed foods being cheaper to make. So increasing taxes on "quick and easy" products is not going to be popular.

But unless there is more of a level-price playing field for healthy options such as organic products, the cost to society of eating so much junk will only increase.

Already last week we've seen Fonterra drastically reducing its production of organic milk because it has not proved profitable. Why not? Because it is price-prohibitive to purchase. That's the real argument that needs to be had about the price of milk, or anything else, for that matter.

That's the right of it.

Bruce Bisset is a freelance writer and poet.