Slate: Hunger and Obesity Can Be Two Sides of the Same Coin

The recent United Nations report on “The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2017” explains the troubling recent increase in world hunger and obesity rates. Global hunger rates had been steadily declining for decades, but from 2015 to 2016 there was an increase of 40 million people who went hungry. Obesity has doubled since 1980. Each year, an estimated 815 million people go hungry while more than 700 million are obese. Starvation and obesity are merely opposite sides of the same issue – both groups can be found within any country and suffer from malnutrition caused by a lack of reliable access to nutritious foods. This link between hunger and obesity is starkly evident in the case of Nestlé expanding its food empire into South America, blamed for contributing to a recent spike in overweight and obese individuals in Brazil. The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals still target hunger and malnutrition in terms of a lack of calories, with little focus on lack of nutrients and as the article concludes, “calorie counts say nothing about food quality.” As obesity and hunger rates continue to rise, there is a need to redefine global health goals to focus on improving reliable access to nutritious foods. – YaleGlobal