Research Based Essay Global Food System and Dietary Needs

Question: Discuss about the Research Based Essayfor Global Food System and Dietary Needs. Answer: Introduction In the essay Escape from the Western Diet, the author talks about the diet of western people and also advices them to escape from the same. The author highlighted the negative impact of the western diet on the health of people (Pollan 2012). The disease caused by this type of diet has been named as western disease. Pollan has also supported the poor diet of the Western people by relevant theories. On the other hand, the author has also showed how effectively the food production industries have been benefiting from these food products. Basically, Pollan wanted to create awareness about the degrading condition of the food industry and the way the food products are proving harmful to the consumers (Pollan 2012). In the essay, Big Food, Food System, and Global Health it has been pointed out that the Global food systems are not meeting the food standard and the dietary needs of the global population (Stuckler and Marion 2012). On one hand, it has been evident that one billion people are hungry and on the other hand, two billon people are over weighed. Millions of people are underweight and malnourished. The evidence of malnourished and overweighed people clearly signifies the unbalanced nature of the distribution of food worldwide. In order to understand the reason behind the imbalance of the food system, the Worlds largest food manufacturers have been questioned over their dominance and their responsibility in the Global Food market (Stuckler and Marion 2012). Keeping the instances of the findings from the two essays, it can be said that Global Food system and dietary needs in the present situation is in utter poor condition. Thus, a research can be carried on the understanding the present situation of the global food market and its impact on the health of the consumers (Gostin and Devi 2014). In this respect, an important point of consideration is to understand the Giant Food Production companies that rule the Global food production and supply. The drastic nutritional failure can be easily regarded as the responsibility failure of these food giants. As pointed out by Kim et al. (2013), half of the Worlds soft drink is produced by the Coca Cola and the Pepsi Company. Three-fourth of the Worlds food is available in the processed forms which are owned by very few manufacturers. These processed foods have very few nutritional values. Thus, it shall fall under the responsibility of these giant food manufacturers to take care of the global food production and that the food products meet the nutritional demand of the consumers as well (Moss 2013). However, such evidences are not found and the food and the beverage giants are found busy in making profits. In the lieu of this, these food manufacturers are found to use cheap ingredients that are not at all good for health. Not much effort is made to improve the quality as it shall increase the cost of the product and the company might have to compromise with its profitability. As argued by Ashraf et al. (2014), that in a food abundant world, it requires a new paradigm to address the food security and walk away from the production perspective of these giant food manufacturers. Considerable researches have been made in the past decade and strict precautionary measures have been made on the food security. However, focus has always been made on the agriculture and the food production system rather than on the food manufacturers. The global food production has never been higher than the present scenario (Jon et al. 2017). Several measures have been made to increase the food productivity and meet the global food demand. The increase in the production has almost tripled in last five decades but the crisis related to the global food system has still remained the same. In fact, the situation has declined by many folds. World is burdened with triple threats, namely, hunger, under nutrition and obesity. As commented by OSullivan and Tony (2014), feeding people is equally important as considering their health factors. Thus, intervention for better nutrition and a need to adapt health eating habits have become the most vital part of consideration in understanding the global food system and dietary needs. Reading Pollan (2012), it has been observed that the supply of food should be enough to feed the ever growing population and the millions of people that go hungry every single day. In fact, 165 million children under the age of five are victims of chronic malnutrition. If the situation of the processed food manufacturers is considered, there are 10 major companies who are the major producers of the food that we eat. It has been estimated that these manufacturing giants actually generate revenue of more than $1.1 billion a day. In fact, these companies are also responsible for engaging illegal labor for the ultimate outcome of the manufactured food. Thus, the capability of these food manufacturing giants cannot be challenged. As stated by Anderson and Miranda (2014), that the responsibility of these global food giants should not be limited to supplying the food products as per the demand of the market, but these companies should be more inclined and responsible towards considering the health of the consumers. In fact, the reason behind the poor health condition and the increasing obesity rate of the people in the Western countries are these giant companies. It has been argued by Ashraf et al. (2014), that these giant food manufacturers should also be responsible to consider the health aspects of the consumers. Several actions have been made on these giant food companies and they have been asked to focus on the health perspective of the consumers. Companies like Coca-Cola, Kellogg, Danone and other major food and drink producers are some of the companies that fall under this category. Other companies include Sainsbury, Kraft Foods, Nestle, Tate Lyle and the Unilever Ltd (Moss 2013). However, governmental plans have failed and the issues of obesity suffered a setback because these companies have been found to ignore the plea of the government to cut down fat, salt or sugar in their products. The giant food companies have been held responsible for the declining health condition of people around the world. The oligopolistic nature of business that these companies have been doing in the market has marked the disposition role of these companies in the market (Anderson and Miranda 2014). The food industry has miraculously escaped from all the blames that has been carrying out their business in the market without undertaking much concern of the degrading health condition of people (Moss 2013). In fact, these companies have also claimed that the primary cause of obesity cannot be the ingredients of the products that these companies serve, but there are other concealed reasons as well that people fail to recognize. The concern related to the declining health condition has still remained the utter point of consideration for both the consumers and the government as well. Products with high calorie and low nutritional value have dominated the market. With the increase in the options of food products, concerns related to the health and nutrition has been found to increase. Governmental actions have been evident in curbing the mal practices in food production techniques and the ingredients used in it. However, no such fruitful results have been evident that could be able to balance the imbalance of the over nourished and the malnourished people. By the end of the discussion, it has to be said that it falls under the major responsibilities of the food manufacturers to consider the effective means of serving the consumers in a right manner. References: Anderson, Katherine, and Miranda Mirosa. "Revealing barriers to healthier fast food consumption choices."British Food Journal116.5 (2014): 821-831. Ashraf, Mohammad A., Sharmin Akhter, and Saad Imran Noor. "Consumer behavior in fast food marketing in Bangladesh: A case study."Developing Country Studies4.9 (2014): 34-44. Campbell, Denis. Giant food firms fail to back battle against obesity Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/mar/18/obesity-health-and-food-industry-andrew-lansley (2012) [Accessed on: 3-4-2017] Gostin, Lawrence O., and Devi Sridhar. "Global health and the law."New England Journal of Medicine370.18 (2014): 1732-1740. Jou, Chin.Supersizing Urban America: How Inner Cities Got Fast Food with Government Help. University of Chicago Press, 2017. Kim, Jim Yong, Paul Farmer, and Michael E. Porter. "Redefining global health-care delivery."The Lancet382.9897 (2013): 1060-1069. Moss, Michael. Salt, sugar, fat: How the food giants hooked us. Random House, 2013. OSullivan, Michelle, and Tony Royle. "Everything and nothing changes: Fast-food employers and the threat to minimum wage regulation in Ireland."Economic and Industrial Democracy35.1 (2014): 27-47. Pollan, Micheal. "Escape from the Western Diet."They Say/I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing: With Readings2 (2012): 434-441. Stuckler, David, and Marion Nestle. "Big food, food systems, and global health."PLoS Med9.6 (2012): e1001242.