Among the key points I emphasize in my clinical nutrition class are that everyone needs substantial amounts of vegetables and fruits and that highly processed foods (sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, white flour, fries, chips, sodas) are a major problem. Virtually everyone in the health field, from the Surgeon General
and the National Cancer Institute on down, recognizes these realities.
Public health workers understand that unless large numbers of people change
their diets accordingly, the overall health of our population will continiue to decline. The trend lines on obesity, diabetes, heart disease, osteoporosis and many other illnesses are alarming.
Therefore, the news that fewer people can afford healthy foods is particularly unwelcome.
Relief from the rising cost of food isn’t expected anytime soon. Food prices increased 4% in 2007 and are expected to be up an additional 5% to 6% this year, according to the Department of Agriculture. The food crisis has sparked riots around the world and stretched pocketbooks at home, but it is for some as much a health concern as an economic problem. Since healthier foods, like whole-wheat bread and fresh fruits, are already more expensive than white bread and processed foods, the increases are acutely felt by people trying to fight serious illnesses.
“Fruits and vegetables are by definition becoming luxury goods,” says Adam Drewnowski, director of the University of Washington Center for Obesity Research. In a study released last December, he found that the prices of some healthy foods in Seattle-area grocery stores had jumped 16% between 2004 and 2006, while less-nutritious items had gone up only gradually. “The nutrition gap is growing,” he says. “My fear in public health is that it will continue to grow.”
Aside from donating to charities and praying for those in need, what else can be done? First, we must not reject public policy options because they seem politically untenable at this point in time. Our society urgently requires deep and rigorous analysis of how public policy can impact these private dietary choices. To accomplish this while respecting individual freedom and pushing aside the special interest pleadings of industries that traffic in unhealthy foods is the central public health challenge of our time.
