Diet-related chronic diseases will not decrease with urging people to eat healthily!

Country governments lay down guidelines and urge people to eat healthily. But diet-related chronic diseases continue to inflict and kill people. Hence, this passive strategy does not work when unhealthy food is around. Therefore, access to healthy foods should improve for a healthy population.

Diet-related chronic diseases

Diet plays a major role in health and well-being of the population. Unhealthy eating is the root cause of the several chronic diseases that affect and kill people in the USA. In order to prevent these diet-related chronic diseases such as those of the heart, pancreas, and arteries, every country government has laid down nutritional guidelines. They urge their citizens to follow them and eat in a healthy way.

But despite this practice and strategy to reduce chronic diseases, these diseases continue unabated. In fact, they are on the rise and are number one killer in the USA. This implies that the strategy to tell people to eat healthily has failed. The response from people has been poor. They read and hear but do not follow and adhere to the guidelines.

The main reason for this failure is that unhealthy foods are prepared and sold. People have easy access to these unhealthy foods. And until this is present, people will not stop purchasing and eating them.

Humans and choices

As omnivores, we have choices in eating. But when the choices available are majorly bad, we end up opting for them. 60% of foods available are of the ultra processed types. And these are the major cause of chronic diseases.

For taste reasons or due to habit or ignorance, we end up choosing the bad foods. And that leads to metabolic and chronic diseases in the consumer. The health authorities and governments urge people to eat plant based foods.

But most junk foods in the market are from plants. The access to these unhealthy plant foods that are highly processed should be limited. Instead of telling people to eat healthily, it would be better to present them with more healthier food options to choose from.

Reduction of ultra processed junk foods

One can make rules to limit sale of these junk foods near schools. One can regulate their sales by better labeling and taxing them. Animal protein is not bad totally but it’s production and consumption can be curtailed to lessen its damage on the environment.

The use of antibiotics in animal meat production should be stopped. One needs to make laws to stop animal cruelty. Laws to stop effect of meat production on environment should be made urgently.

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Increase use of lands for growing fruits and vegetables for human consumption. Support agriculture. Agricultural land prejudices against people of color, women, and queer farmers should be stopped. Give land to new farmers and encourage and train them to grow real foods.

It is not about going back to primitive farming or regressing. But it is about blending modern technology with old ways and reaching new heights for good of society.