Poverty medics warn against malnutrition

Growing poverty: medical experts warn against malnutrition

05/04/2014

In the UK, leading physicians warn about malnutrition because of growing poverty in the country. To be able to afford a healthy diet, more and more people simply earned too little. Similar problems are also known from Germany.

Warning of malnutrition in the UK
Due to the growing poverty in the country, leading physicians in the UK warn against malnutrition. As stated by the Faculty of Public Health, an academic association of health scientists, in London on Thursday, May 1, more and more people earned too little to afford a reasonably healthy diet. This is the first time since the Second World War that the steady development of a better and affordable food supply is turning around. Among other things, scientists have pointed to rising food prices, falling incomes, and an increase in food tablets for the socially deprived.

Rising prices and falling wages
For example, between 2007 and 2012 food prices had actually risen by twelve percent, but wages had fallen by 7.6 percent. According to official sources, sales of fruit and vegetables fell by ten percent over the same period. The president of the faculty, John Ashton said: „The ghost of Oliver Twist is back: children are starving in the UK.“ Even though they might not feed on oatmeal, their parents would have to „choose cheap food that is filling but not nourishing.“ This development is unacceptable for the UK as the sixth largest economy in the world and the third largest in Europe. Prime Minister David Cameron is called by the medical profession to set up a working group on hunger in the UK.

Data from the OECD paint a different picture
However, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) painted a different picture with data published in March. The proportion of Britons who say they do not have enough money for their diets has fallen last. According to OECD figures, this share is now at 8.1 percent, below the EU average of 11.5 percent and also below the industrialized world average of 13.2 percent. However, malnutrition is a massive problem worldwide, claiming millions of dead children every year. Especially in many areas of Africa and Asia, people are struggling with hunger and a lack of vitamins and nutrients. A study by Robert Black of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, United States, last year found that in 2011, a total of 45 percent of all deaths among children under five were due to malnutrition and breastfeeding problems are.

In northern Germany, every third person lacks the money for healthy food
Like the newspaper „The world“ reported, a Forsa survey published on behalf of Techniker Krankenkasse (TK) revealed that even in northern Germany, every third person lacks the money for healthy eating. According to the study, this reasoning ranks fifth in Germany, while in the north it occupies third place. In addition, only 37 percent of people in Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Lower Saxony and Bremen would find that food should be healthy above all else. According to their own information, every second person did not want to spend a lot of time on their diet, and more than a quarter of the respondents said that they lacked the necessary knowledge for a healthy diet. According to the health insurance, vitamin and nutrient rich food does not have to be expensive. The TK offers a free seasonal calendar with information on the respective seasonal and thus cheap fruits and vegetables. According to the TK, the study, which was surveyed in January last year 1,000 adults, the most recent study of this kind in Germany. (Ad)

Picture: Alexander Dreher