It all started in the 80s of the last century, when food additives began to be added and ‘fast food’ proliferated, a culture that exploded in the United States and whose shock wave reached the entire planet.
20% of the world population is obese, a pathology that claims the lives of 1.2 million Europeans each yearas revealed by the ‘Regional Report on Obesity’, presented in 2022 by the World Health Organization.
This study also pointed out that one in three school-age children, one in four adolescents and almost 60% of the adult population in Europe is overweight or obese.
To find the origin of this pandemic, it is not necessary to look very far back, as Manel Puig Domingo, professor and head of the Endocrinology and Nutrition Service at the Germans Trias i Pujol Hospital and Research Institute (IGTP) in Barcelona, told me in an interview. “Starts in the 80’swhen they begin to add additives to the meals already proliferate ‘fast food’, a culture that exploded in the United States. If we go to a place where, for 10 dollars, they offer an ‘all you can eat’ (all you can eat), things are not going well. And if, on top of that, the meals have a high fat content and are accompanied by sweetened drinks, the issue becomes even more complicated.”
And the problem with all this is that, now, turning back is becoming more and more complicated, as Puig Domingo also explained to me. “Besides all the food industry power and the money that it drags, there is an indisputable phenomenon: very fatty foods cause a hormonal storm so pleasurable in our senses that we can’t stop eating them. A phenomenon of repeated ingestion occurs, something that, for example, does not happen to us when we eat an apple”.
And the most discouraging of all is how this global epidemic is taking its toll on the little ones: “It has gone from less than 3% of obese children in the 1990s from the last century to more than 10% today. This is extremely worrying if one takes into account that an obese child will be a sick adult“, asserts Dr. Puig Domingo.
“get that childhood and adolescence grow in a healthy way It means facilitating these environments to promote healthy lifestyles: an active life, a healthy diet, emotional well-being and good rest habits. To ensure this happens, it is necessary to strengthen public services, protect their health and promote a cultural change to make these lifestyles desirable and enjoyable. In this mission, we must all work together: families, teachers, health workers, companies, the media, third sector entities, public administrations at all levels and, of course, the children and adolescents themselves”, proclaims the ‘National Strategic Plan for the Reduction of Obesity Children’ (2022 – 2030), coordinated by the High Commissioner once morest Child Poverty with the Gasol Foundation as a key ally.
To this mission, which right now seems almost impossible, we should each give ourselves to the best of our ability and with our ‘humble’ ability to arrive. Why this It is not a matter of phobias, but of public health.
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