Unhealthy Foods and Unhealthy Lifestyles - Essay Example

Unhealthy foods and unhealthy lifestyles

Health is concerned with the level of metabolic or functional efficiency that is related to a living organism. In the human beings category, it refers to the general condition of a person’s body and mind, mainly attached to being free from pain, injury or illness. In a general view, the context in which a person lives is of a great value for both his/her quality of life and health status. According to the World Health organization, the primary determinants of health include the physical environment, the social and economic environment, and the person’s individual behaviours and characteristics. Some of the key factors that have been identified to influence whether people are living in a healthy or unhealthy way include: income and social status, personal health practices and coping skills, education and literacy, physical and social environments, biology and genetics, health care services, employment conditions among others.

Socially, there exists an influence that has health implications by being impacted on the eating trends that has been adopted by others. This can be direct or indirect, conscious or subconscious, influence. The choice of food is influenced by the social factors, even privately, because habits and attitudes develop as we interact with others. When we are with our family and friends, research has shown that we eat more than when alone and the quantity of food consumed rises as the number of fellow dinners increases (Neira et al, 2013). The economic factors are also highly related to the way in which the lifestyles and eating programs are administered. The rate of unemployment, for example, affects greatly issues like domestic violence, physical illness, depression or abuse. Economic inequality have great impacts in the stress levels of the peoples, educational prospects, exposure to toxins, mortality rates, high-risk behaviour and access to services.

Most of the cases of obesity are resultant from unhealthy eating and lack of proper physical exercise. The consumption of high amounts of energy in the diet while not burning off the energy through physical activity and exercise, this surplus energy is turned to fats. Obesity is not an overnight affair. It is a gradual development from lifestyle choices and poor diets (Story, Nanney & Schwartz 2009). These unhealthy foods could include: hat is eating fast or processed food that is high in fat, drinking too much alcohol, eating out a lot (high in fat and sugar food), eating more than necessary or comfort eating where out of depression or social pressures like low self-esteem makes a person to eat more to feel better.

There are series of changes which the culture of having consumption of unhealthy foods and living unhealthy lifestyles is being associated with. The increased food supply, combined with the dynamism in the food production industry and the constant sophisticated utilization of persuasion and promotion have dramatically cut the price of calories and availed convenience food easily. There also changing living and working conditions meaning that few people are at a position of preparing traditional meals using the raw ingredients. At the workplace, there is less physical activity, high stress at the working places and job insecurities with long working hours. These lifestyle changes have resulted to the challenges like the obesity epidemic issues.

Some of the policies that the government implement have also played a part inadvertently in this problem of unhealthy lifestyles and eating habits. Examples here includes inappropriate administration of taxation and subsidies policies (e.g. in agriculture) that affects the food prices; urban planning policies that leads to urban areas that are very deprived with many fast food outlets, few sports and playground facilities; transport policies encouraging the use of personal cars use and makes walking in the workplace an oddity. The government should assist people to have unhealthy lifestyles change. This is achieved by making new options to healthy living available and making those which are existing to be affordable and easily accessible.

An alternative is to apply the use of information, education and persuasion to make the healthy options available more attractive. This is a gentle approach which is more expensive, hard to monitor and hard to administer. Regulation of and fiscal measures is a tougher approach but it reaches all the consumers indiscriminately. Welfare and political welfare costs May results. In addition it may be hard to enforce and organize and also have regressive effects. The governments are stepping-up efforts to promote a culture of right living and healthy eating. Initiatives are directed majorly to school-age children, like changes in school diets and the vending machines, improved facilities for physical activity, and health education.

Following the above described measures, compared to the use of regulation and fiscal levers like “fat tax”, are more preferable. This is because complex regulatory process, probability of confrontation with key sectors and enforcement costs will be associated with these fiscal measures. Instead of tax imposition, government should ensure that food and beverage industry takes the necessary actions. They need to be regulated so as to avoid the production that makes use of particular ingredients that are unhealthy like saturated fats and too much sugar, provide menu alternatives that are healthy and reduction of excessive portion sizes. There should also be efforts to regulate advertising especially to groups that are vulnerable like children and having the consumers informed about the contents in a particular food.

In conclusion, the solutions to the unhealthy lifestyles and unhealthy eating need to be addressed from many sides. The government should apply its monetary and fiscal tools to ensure solutions are obtained. However it needs to concentrate more with incentives to encourage healthy living. The consumers also have a role to play. They should make informed choices that regard the lifestyles and the food they eat. The food industry as well needs to facilitate in this by helping the consumer to make healthy choices. They need to aim at giving consistent , clear and honest product claims. They should promote health education at all levels, from medical schools to public schools, and bring about nutrition awareness at the consumer level. All these combined forces will be integrated to bring about a healthy lifestyle