FAO warns that obesity rates soared due to dramatic global diet shift
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Eating food high in starch, sugar, fats and salt; combined with a sedentary lifestyle, is a recipe for soaring global obesity rates, even in countries where many still suffer from hunger.
On World Food Day, that fell on Wednesday, the UN’s food agency, FAO, called for action to make healthy, sustainable diets affordable and accessible for all.
The shift away from seasonal, mainly plant-based and fibre-rich food has occurred in recent decades, as a result of globalization, urbanization and growth in income, says FAO, as busy consumers in urban areas find less time to cook at home, and rely increasingly on fast-food outlets, street food vendors and take-away meals.
This has led to a situation whereby almost 800 million people are considered obese, and over 40 million children under-five are overweight. The health costs of unhealthy eating habits – blamed as the leading cause of diabetes, heart disease and certain cancers – are estimated at around $2 trillion per year.
At the same time, some 821 million people are still suffering from hunger across the world, with numbers increasing over the past three years, and around one in three children are malnourished and not developing properly: in some parts of Africa, hunger has risen by almost 20 per cent.
