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Yesterday, I bought some food at the grocery store. I know... *amazing.* But yes, I did. While I have very little concern about the Corona virus, the reactions that some people are having does concern me, with pictures from Australia coming through of empty shelves. I do not think that it will happen here, but just in case, I did buy some things for my daughter. 

As she has a very limited food range due to allergies, I wanted to make sure that we have at least some kind of supply put away just in case. The problem is, she can't eat most canned or dry food due to the additives, so fresh food has to be prepared and frozen. This meant that we couldn't buy much as we are already limited on freezer space, but at least it is *something.* It is quite incredible that in this day and age, one has to still think about food supply even though half the world is dying from overeating.

https://i.imgur.com/wANFxHR.jpg

I had a discussion about the obesity epidemic with a client who is a pediatric surgeon the other day and was wondering at what point the environmental concerns come into play. The reason is that a lot of people will bring up the environmental implications of eating certain kinds of foods, but what about the amounts of food, as this is a significant component of the impact of consumption. 

A few years ago there were cases and claims of discrimination in things like flight tickets where people were directed to buy an extra seat to accommodate their frame. Is it unreasonable?

The problem that has now arisen of course is that while the argument can be made that no one is forced to over eat and it is an opt-in process to be obese, no one chooses their parents either. Parental behaviors obviously have a significant impact on the outcomes of children, and early diet is likely very good indicator of how heavy that influence can be. Not only that, there are indications that obesity during conception can influence the DNA of the offspring.

My client was saying that as a parent himself, he is quite upset at the condition of many of the children he sees in his practice and like me, thinks it is predictive of their future. I wonder, while it has been outlawed in many places to smack children, at what point does the diet one feeds become parental neglect and abuse. Technically, it already is, if you *don't feed* children - but shouldn't that go the other way also?

I have never been comfortable with the idea of the idea of, "love yourself the way you are" as it gets misconstrued and turned into a passive approach and an excuse to not improve. What happened to the *"health is wealth"* standard? Yet, whenever these kinds of discussions take place, it always gets turned into some kind of discrimination conversation, rather than the topic at hand.

Once the environmental impact issues come into play however, are calls of discrimination a justifiable defense? There are taxes on vehicles that pollute more and limitations in some places on who can buy what kind of pollutants. What would happen if the same kinds of rules came into play at the grocery store, where some people could buy candy, others could not - in the same way it is for cigarettes and alcohol?

While I do not think that we are near that point, it is just an interesting thought exercise and is going to be increasingly brought into the conversation as the costs of the impact of poor health keep climbing. The problem with healthcare often is that the costs of treatment are much higher than the costs of preventative measures, but there seems to be very little organized incentive to actually prevent poor outcomes - if there were, would +30% of many populations be considered obese?

It is an interesting phenomena that we have access to so much information in this world, yet we don't seem to do a very good personal job of using it to improve our own condition. Perhaps this is another symptom of reliance on authority, as we expect someone else to look after us when we have failed to look after ourselves. 


Taraz
[ a Steem original ]

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