In a tweet on February 28, Dr. Juan Carlos Said indicated that, while the zip code is probably the main determinant of people’s health, it is the genetic code that takes most of the resources in research, and, we add, in other areas such as communications. This reinforces the idea that we underestimate the impact of unhealthy environments on people’s decisions and therefore on their health situation.
Regarding this tweet and World Obesity Day (March 4) -convened by the World Obesity Federation to raise awareness among public policy managers- from GTOP-UChile (https://gtop.uchile.cl/) we want to insist on the importance of this problem in Chile and call on the authorities to deepen and innovate in public policies that address obesogenic environments from their structural causes.
According to WHO estimates, and despite the sustained increase in undernourishment in the last decade, obesity and overweight have not stopped growing in all age groups and in all regions of the world. This population increase in obesity has direct implications in multiple pathologies including cardiovascular diseases and cancer (the main causes of death in Chile). However, obesity is not an individual problem. As indicated by the prestigious magazine Lancet, obesity, malnutrition and climate change have common drivers, establishing synergies in their negative consequences. Therefore, addressing them involves complex strategies that involve global, comprehensive and high-level political decisions.
The WHO itself, based on scientific evidence, has called for the development of a set of more cost-effective policies under the concept “Best Buys” (better investments). Among them, front labeling and advertising restrictions on unhealthy foods stand out, as well as fiscal measures that include taxes on harmful foods and subsidies on healthy foods, all measures that attempt to improve the environments where people live and are modified. Although Chile stands out with measures such as front labeling and advertising of unhealthy foods, it still has a debt in terms of food environments, since it only has insufficient taxes on sugary drinks.
Although eating behaviors appear to be personal decisions, they are strongly conditioned by the availability and physical and economic access to food, all important elements of the environment. If the foods with the highest availability and lowest economic cost are those that are less healthy (which contributes to generating obesogenic environments), we cannot demand that the population does not buy and consume them; Conversely, if healthy is harder to come by and more expensive, we can’t insist on making dietary recommendations that won’t be possible to follow. Therefore, it is important and necessary to improve the food environments in which the population lives: increasing the number of free fairs (location and opening hours); subsidizing the production and distribution of healthy food; promoting short circuits; Increasing taxes on foods with a “high in” stamp and further limiting the advertising of such foods.
Lorena Rodríguez Osiac, Daniel Egaña Rojas, Patricia Gálvez Espinoza.
Transdisciplinary Group for Obesity in Populations of the University of Chile
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The content expressed in this opinion column is the sole responsibility of its author, and does not necessarily reflect the editorial line or position of El Mostrador.
