Nutrition Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Nutrition - Research Paper Example A sustainable food system needs to address unsuitable consumption as well as unsuitable production since both of them contributes toward negative environmental and healthy impact. Nutritional Challenges Affecting Current Food System Epidemic rise chronic disease Nutrition transition has occurred and has led to increase of cases of chronic disease which include diabetics, cardiovascular diseases, and cancer. This is attributed to a large shift in both physical activity and food consumed. This shift is reflected in population by nutrition outcome such as stature and body composition changes (Kickbusch). The modern society has converged to â€Å"western diet† which is food with a high level content of sugar and saturated with fat also low in fibre content and this is the diet that is linked to chronic disease and degenerative effects (Ilona 14). Chapter four of the film highlights this scenario with a case of a family’s dilemma situation at the grocery store: due to father diabetic condition, the family is aware that a healthier diet with more fresh foods would be the most suitable for him, but they have choose from foods they can afford. As the film imply, people with low incomes are most likely to eat cheaper, processed foods, and thus more likely to suffer from obesity, Type 2 diabetes, and other diet-related health disease (Pollan). â€Å"We are taking risks with our health and the health of the natural world that are unprecedented.† Food shortage 70 percent of the poor in the world depend on agriculture for their livelihood. The current food system is not delivering enough food supply to world population. Pollan used a â€Å"plant’s eye view of the world† to explore how plants which is needed by human could be thought to have manipulated and domesticated us, rather than the other way around. Using the same hypothesis, he claims that corn has succeeded in â€Å"domesticating us† where the current food supply system has influenced destruction of their local system of farming through green house gas emission from strong economies, which contribute to, global warming ,which adversely affect, the farming system, though developed and developing countries are both victim of worsened food insecurity (Ilona16). Chapter nine of the film touches on some issues manifested by our current food system, including acute possibility of a world food shortage, the significant amount of energy that goes into food production, and the impacts of industrialized food on our health and the environment. The film points out that while the consumer may feel helpless in the face of these issues of the food system, the food system does not positively respond to consumer need. Food and water safety Through food and water, over 200 disease agent can be transmitted to various people in a population, but this food system safety issue does not receive priority it deserves compared to other infectious disease such as HIV/AIDs or tu berculosis. (Ilona 18) Chapter three of Food, Inc. focuses on one of the unexpected implication of our current food system: the occasional contamination of the food supply and the very real risks presented to the population. The film reflects on this problem by interviewing the mother of a child who died from E. coli contracted from eating a hamburger. At a global scale, there are about 1.8 million deaths caused by diarrhea