More people in the world are now dying from obesity than malnutrition with 1.5 billion dangerously overweight people worldwide last year, while 925 million were underfed.
In Britain, 7th in the OECD Obesity table, 1 in 11 deaths are now linked to obesity while in the US, who top the league, 1 in 8 deaths are attributed to illness stemming from obesity.
The Red Cross rightly explain that the world produces enough food for all of us but hunger exists due to the poor distribution of the food that we have got.
The organisation’s Bekele Geleta said: ‘If the free interplay of market forces has produced an outcome where 15 per cent of humanity are hungry while 20 per cent are overweight, something has gone wrong somewhere.’
Very wrong i'd say. It was only a few decades ago that we had concerts for the starving millions, now we are in the perverse situation where even more people are now dying because of the exact opposite reason.
When we are being bombarded by advertisements for fast foods and sugar filled drinks and have the Olympics, the Worlds premier sporting event which showcases the finest and fittest athletes on the Planet, so closely associated with the likes of McDonald's and Coca-Cola it is hard to see things improving, especially as the the revenue from the UK snacks and confectionery market is currently £8 billion a year.
That's quite a big slice of income for the Government although the cost to the NHS of obesity is running at £5 billion, approximately the same as smoking but when was the last time we saw an advert urging us to eat less KFCs?
8 comments:
while advertising isn't helping it is shocking to me that you always, yes i think always, find a reason to blame everyone except for the culprit - uhhhh - victim.
this is what romney was talking about with the 47%. people blaming everything except their own decisions. it tires me.
push away from the table, turn off the TV, and go for a walk for cripes sake...
WITH NO SYMPATHY
q
q, if advertising didn't make people spend money on their wares then companies wouldn't spend millions doing it. I blame the advertisers more than the people who have their heads turned by advertisers who have teams and teams of people dedicated to making their burgers and colas more and more appealing to viewers. And as usual you take the side of the multi-million pound companies over the rest of the gullible and easily duped, the 47%, who the advertisers gear their adverts towards and spend so much money on making sure that their decisions are not as simple as you seem to think.
Seems a bit cold hearted to have no sympathy for people dying though. I have sympathy for anyone who dies regardless of their eating habits.
no lucy,
i dont take the side of companies!
i go against this bullshit that adults can't control their stomachs (i know there are some, very few, people that have legit medical issues and can't control their weight - i don't mean them). i mean the other 99% of the land whales i see daily!
for the record, mailing based adverstizing campaigns are considered good if they have a 1.5% response rate. advertising isn't good, it is just the best companies have.
hey you people - quit choking down pounds of food and go for a walk!!!
q
ps - everybody is gonna die and is in the process of dying... i have sympathy for most people dying (not so much mass murderers and such) but i have NO SYMPATHY FOR PEOPLE WITH THE MENTAL CONTROL OF A 3 YEAR OLD and kill themselves by eating.
Let me present as evidence McDonalds m'lud. Has a clown as a figureheard, gives away toys with its meals, bright colours and has childs playpens in its stores. This was obviously aimed at kids but the people from McD's know that kids have no money but what kids do have is pester power, a very strong tool in manipulating adults and McDs knows this and cynically traded on it for decades before somone pointed out, actually, all this junk food is bad for you. Do you think McD's didn't know this but still continued the 'Come to McDs kids, we will give you a toy'.
I agree that people should have more willpower and not eat junk or smoke or drink and exercise more but they know human willpower is weak, and brutally expose it.
oh, so now our 3 year olds have more discipline than their adult parents... hmmmmmm, i think you have found the root cause to the problem. well done.
- daddy, all the other kids play on the highway. daddy, all the other kids get drunk. daddy, all the other kids drop out of high school -
come on lucy, man up! 47 percenter...
q
Actually the point was that the advertisers target the kids to get at the adults on their behalf or do you think that the advertising teams in McDonald's and all the worlds toy manufacturers have been wasting their time and their millions all these years?
Man up? You may have to explain that Americanism but i am guessing it means something along the lines of stop being so childish.
Man up from Google - strap on a pair, grow some balls, stop being such a complete and utter wuss.
It's about developing testicles???
it means "be responsible"... at least when i use it.
lucy, i've been working for fortune 200 companies since i was 22 and that includes many years of competitive intelligence.
trust me when i tell you most (more than half) marketing is ineffective. also, there are very few measures that can tie the sale of an item to advertizing. online is changing that some, but advertizing is arcane and looks to remain so for many more years.
the company i work for is now 90 years old, a fortune 200 company, and we did not begin advertizing until 3 years ago. we used word-of-mouth very successfully - and still do. even now our advertizing is 1/10 of our competitors and we kick their butt...
q
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