Six billion people live on this planet today. One billion of them suffer from hunger and malnutrition. Another billion suffer from obesity and its associated chronic diseases.

What an irony: a world where some people literally kill themselves by overeating, while an equal number of people are dying of hunger. Observing this dichotomy, one must assume that the politics of food will come to occupy center stage in the world’s health and social policies in the coming years.

Hunger has already become a dire political issue in countries as diverse as Cameroon, Egypt, India, Mexico, and the Philippines, where steep increases in food prices have touched off riots. The World Bank estimates that 100 million additional people have fallen into poverty and hunger due to high food prices, reversing a decade of progress. The health consequences of this crisis are dire, and emergency relief is paramount to supporting those in such desperate need.

This issue, however, runs much deeper than dealing with the immediate needs of those suffering from hunger. The anger behind the riots was, in part, directed at the hypocrisy of the rich. This is not only about wasted food and excess consumption in rich countries, as distasteful as these realities may be in the face of global hunger. Many people are also angry about the huge agricultural subsidies of the United States, the European Union, and Japan—subsidies that keep out developing countries’ produce and undermine free trade that could benefit the poor. The world knows that if rich countries truly cared about the long-term development of agriculture in poor countries, their first priority would be to eliminate subsidies and import barriers.

Rich governments are also providing economic subsidies for turning land over to the creation of biofuel; this often increases deforestation in poor countries. Are the hungry not correct to point out that their survival should matter more than fuel, and that it is absurd to destroy their environments to further the environmental policies of the rich?

World leaders have also turned their backs on their Millennium Development Goal commitment to halve hunger by 2015. Empty promises by the rich are not only deceitful; when they affect the lives of those who are suffering the most, they are also immoral.

The politics of obesity are as intense and as complex as the issues surrounding hunger.

One Web site opposing government intervention concerning obesity proclaims that we are all “free to be obese.” And indeed, there are few things more personal than one’s relationship with food; it is appealing to leave food choices to individuals. Yet recent history has shown that individual responsibility alone cannot curb the growth in obesity and its associated chronic diseases, which are the biggest killers in the world, accounting for 60 percent of all deaths worldwide (compared with 30 percent caused by communicable diseases and 10 percent caused by injuries). Obesity is also quickly becoming a problem beyond the world’s rich countries. As the Western diet and lifestyle have spread around the world, 80 percent of the deaths caused by obesity-related chronic disease now occur in low- and middle-income countries.¹

How can we combat obesity? Our opponent is formidable: human biology was shaped several millennia ago in an environment of extreme food scarcity, a time when evolution favored those who hoarded available food. Couple this with today’s easy availability of unhealthy food and the preponderance of unhealthy lifestyle choices and the result is an explosion in obesity and its associated chronic diseases.

Several obvious corrective steps are already underway in an attempt to address this crisis. Foremost is to create a healthy environment for our children. Strategies such as providing healthy school meals, limiting soft drink and snack consumption in schools, making sure children get adequate physical activity, educating parents to provide guidance to obese children, and restrictions on food advertising targeted at children are all being tried in various countries.

However, the root causes of obesity are too deep to be entirely addressed by these obvious strategies. Solving the problem will require systemic solutions that will affect a variety of institutions and industries, including:

• Labeling meals: restaurants should be required to post the caloric and nutritional content of the meals they serve.
• Taxing and eliminating subsidies for fat and sugar in order to reduce their consumption (following the example set by many governments in fighting the tobacco industry).
• Reducing meat consumption by cutting subsidies and supports for meat production and shifting that money to the promotion of vegetable and fruit consumption. Since meat production accounts for 18 percent of carbon emissions, this measure would provide environmental benefits as well.
• Using health insurance as leverage: employee copayments and employer premiums should provide economic incentives for weight loss.
• Changing urban design to improve public transportation; create better pathways and trails for walkers, joggers, and bikers; offer safe, open spaces to promote active lifestyles; and encourage food markets to sell fresh produce.

In an attempt to kick-start a global debate on food, a social movement called Table for Two has been launched by members of the Forum of Young Global Leaders in partnership with the World Economic Forum. Under this program, every time someone eats a certified healthy meal at a cooperating company cafeteria or restaurant, 20 cents will be donated to fund a school meal in a region suffering from hunger. Through this innovative idea, individuals can help themselves to avoid obesity while also helping a child suffering from hunger. During its first year, over 60 multinational corporations have joined the Table for Two program. The goal is to expand the program to 1,000 of the world’s largest corporations and restaurant chains.

We have the ability to change the world with every meal we consume. Both heightened awareness and behavioral change could pave the way for a real social movement regarding food and health.

¹ Statistics in this paragraph come from the World Health Organization.

Back to top