05. Excess Food Consumption
Nearly 50% of the world's overweight children under five live in Asia. The proportion of Ethiopian women who are obese has risrisenen 600% since 1984. The developing world is getting fatter
This is a poster displayed at the MRT station in Singapore in 2019.
What's the impact of excess food consumption as shown in the poster?
The following photograph was posted on facebook
What does it tell you about the food consumption between DCs and LDCs?
What can you infer from the cartoons below?
Obesity - a common problem in DC
· 3 problems related to excessive food consumption
· 2 causes of obesity
· 1 way to combat excessive food consumption
Why is obesity a growing concern in Singapore?
Growing concern due to increased numbers:
• Increased food consumption/ calorie intake
o An adult’s daily intake increased from 2,062 calories per day in 1998 to 2,624 calories per day.
o increases % of Singaporeans exceeding recommended calorie intake, from 34% in 1998 to 59% in 2010
• More younger people are overweight
o 10% of 5 year old are overweight
o 70% of children who were overweight at 7 year old remained overweight as adults
Growing concern due to impact:
Health impact
• Increases vulnerability to illnesses
o Obese people are more likely to develop high blood pressure (hypertension), heart diseases, diabetes, etc.
Economic impact
• Lower productivity
o Obese people are physically slow and/or fall sick more easily.
o On national level, sickly obese employees may cost companies money due to lost productivity and insurance costs.
o Obese children are often sick and lose out on educational opportunities.
• Strain on national resources/Heavier burden on government
o Government needs to divert financial resources to healthcare,
o making less funds available for other areas of development (infrastructure, housing, education, etc.)
Quick recap of the following terms:
LDCs, DCs,
food consumption (excess and inadequate),
health problems, obesity, malnutrition, starvation
food consumption per capita, daily calorie intake,
disposable income,
social unrest,
scavenging
organic food,
staple food,
food preference