The obesity crisis is, I believe, even more important than problems surrounding food safety-borne epidemics. Despite the recent attention given to obesity in the popular media, obesity is in some ways more difficult to treat than food safety issues. People's consciousness may be raised by a fear if becoming sick through food poisoning and throw out the offending, recalled products on their shelves if they contain salmonella or e.coli, but they seem less willing and/or able to change food habits that have been ingrained within them since childhood.
The diabetes epidemic, along with other illnesses related to obesity (like heart disease, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and osteoarthritis) will increase unless more active preventative healthcare measures are undertaken on a wide scale. Limiting the number of fast food restaurants that can be present in a specific area and near schools, along with promoting the spread of grocery stores and farmer's markets in 'food deserts' can increase is an important first step. So is taxing soda and prohibiting the use of food stamps to buy sugary soft.
Changes in legislation are needed, I believe, to fully address the causes of diabetes. However, until then, individuals must learn to take proactive steps to protect their own health. Nurses and other healthcare professionals must recognize when clients' illnesses are not simply due to personal choices, but are the result of a lifetime of health behaviors facilitated by their environments....
Although this is a very simple statement to make, the question of how to achieve such objectives must be the result of a dialogue between healthcare professionals and the patient.
When the question as to why the individual does not move more arises, the issue must be made specific: is it a lack of safe places to exercise? Is it time? Quite often, poorer individuals working multiple jobs do not have the ability to engage in effective physical activity without proper planning and assistance from someone else who can show them to how to work exercise into their lives. Budgeting for healthy food that is tasty and satisfying, and cooking it with limited access to time and facilities can also be challenging in the absence of professional support and advice (Engber 2009, p.1).
Changing lifestyles is a vital aspect of making the community healthier -- as well as the world. Sanitary and healthy cooking conditions are, of course, extremely important to observe and to know about, on an individual basis. Increasing the ease of reporting suspected unsafe conditions is also vitally important. But the relative safety of day-in, day-out food choices -- food choices that are often taken for granted -- also cannot be dismissed.
Reference
Engber, Daniel (2009). Does poverty make people poor? Slate. Retrieved November 2, 2010 at http://www.slate.com/id/2229523/
