The rising threat of childhood obesity in America is in the Washington Post spotlight this weekend offering a bizarre contrast to recent headlines about worldwide hunger and starvation.
"In ways only beginning to be understood," the Post reports, "overweight at a young age appears to be far more destructive to well-being than adding excess pounds later in life...
"Doctors are seeing confirmation of this daily: boys and girls in elementary school suffering from high blood pressure, high cholesterol and painful joint conditions; a soaring incidence of type 2 diabetes, once a rarity in pediatricians' offices; even a spike in child gallstones, also once a singularly adult affliction...
"With one in three children in this country overweight or worse, the future health and productivity of an entire generation--and a nation--could be in jeopardy."
The inequality mirrored in overfed children here and starving children elsewhere is complex on both sides of the equation.
Crop failures, hoarding, corruption, manipulated food prices, even natural disasters exacerbated by political stupidity (as in Myanmar) are part of the politics of starvation that resist humanitarian and financial aid efforts.
The alarming rise in American childhood obesity has roots in a culture of sedentary pastimes, among other causes, but fast food and nutritional ignorance contribute to an epidemic that may overwhelm our health care system in generations to come, even as increasing economic disparities of the Bush years leave pockets of hunger and malnutrition here that resemble Third World suffering.
If human beings can't get their act together on something as basic as rationally providing and consuming food for the survival of the species, what hope is there for progress on the knottier problems of civilization?
Showing posts with label food riots. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food riots. Show all posts
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Saturday, April 19, 2008
The Politics of Starvation
The growing world food crisis looks like a montage in a disaster movie--crowd scenes of hungry rioters in Haiti, Egypt and Africa's Ivory Coast; close-ups of emaciated mothers holding out starving children to anyone who will feed them; well-fed gray men in paneled rooms clucking impotently.
Before the World Bank meeting last weekend, president Robert Zoellick talked about the growing emergency caused by doubling wheat and rice prices in the past year. "While many are worrying about filling their gas tanks, many others around the world are struggling to fill their stomachs and it's getting more and more difficult everyday,” he said.
But at the meeting, nothing was done. An official of the International Monetary Fund observed that "the best sort of response is to allow market forces to operate, to allow prices to rise so that there can be a supply response."
To his credit, President Bush acted more forcefully by releasing $200 million in emergency food aid and promising to do more. But in Congress, a farm bill that could alleviate hunger in the US with food stamps and nutrition programs is tied up by political wrangling as members stuff it with provisions to help breeders of race horses and farmers in law suits over the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
Meanwhile, the disaster movie keeps unreeling, and the only way for onlookers to change the script is by supporting organizations like Oxfam, Bread for the World and the UN's World Food Programme--and letting members of Congress know that, if they don't act responsibly, they may have to look elsewhere for their own bread and butter after November.
Before the World Bank meeting last weekend, president Robert Zoellick talked about the growing emergency caused by doubling wheat and rice prices in the past year. "While many are worrying about filling their gas tanks, many others around the world are struggling to fill their stomachs and it's getting more and more difficult everyday,” he said.
But at the meeting, nothing was done. An official of the International Monetary Fund observed that "the best sort of response is to allow market forces to operate, to allow prices to rise so that there can be a supply response."
To his credit, President Bush acted more forcefully by releasing $200 million in emergency food aid and promising to do more. But in Congress, a farm bill that could alleviate hunger in the US with food stamps and nutrition programs is tied up by political wrangling as members stuff it with provisions to help breeders of race horses and farmers in law suits over the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
Meanwhile, the disaster movie keeps unreeling, and the only way for onlookers to change the script is by supporting organizations like Oxfam, Bread for the World and the UN's World Food Programme--and letting members of Congress know that, if they don't act responsibly, they may have to look elsewhere for their own bread and butter after November.
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