The Malnutrition and Overweight

Malnutrition is a severe global burden with millions of people being underfed as well as being overweight. The consequences, socially and economically, are very costly for the families communities and countries that are affected. While nutrition is progressively being paid attention to, it is not often discussed. In order to eliminate hunger, sustainable development, literacy, poor nations, and wealthy nations are what need to be done. We are presently viewing an era of political movements targeted at ending hunger and all forms of malnutrition that happens worldwide.

Additionally, the Sustainable Development Goals that came out in 2015 for the most part is a valuable concept since they focus on the nature of nutrition. The second goal specifically concentrates on improving nutrition, ending hunger, attaining food safety, and encouraging maintainable food production, but there are a lot of other goals that refer to food and hunger. Fast food companies have been flowing in trying to enter the market globally. They have taken over and impacted West African countries, like my home country Ghana for example. KFC has pulled in Ghana where it doesn’t want to be to the point where they feel addicted to the food and constantly have a craving. This is causing obesity and heart disease in the country. Being that the president of Ghana is overweight as well, he was very concerned about the increase in fast food restaurants.

As countries develop, fast food started to take hold. KFC makes up the embrace of western foods. Up to now, there hasn’t been a single nation that has been able to change the obesity growth, and only some have prospered in putting marketing reforms into effect to limit exposure for consumers. These fast food companies are being unfair and inconsiderate when it comes to valuing the health of these countries. In the KFC in Ghana, the chickens are cooked in hot tubs of palm oil, which is an ingredient the business decided to stop using in the United States and the UK because it is high in saturated fats.

The unexpected change in diet led to health hazards in Ghana that isn’t looking to good, even at a rate faster than in America. From 1990 to 2015, deaths that were associated to high body mass increased about 180 percent in Ghana, linked to an increase of 20 percent in the United States. KFC executives say stuff like “At KFC, we’re proud of our world famous, freshly in-store prepared fried chicken and believe it can be enjoyed as a part of a balanced diet and healthy lifestyle” and “We do believe in a healthy, balanced lifestyle.” This says a lot about what these fast food companies are trying to do. The public pressure that has encouraged KFC to make extra changes in the West is not what is being expressed in Ghana.

According to online nutrition calculator of KFC for Africa, the lunch box meal goes beyond the day-to-day suggested levels of salt and sugar, and includes fatty acids. This is especially a problem because the country’s health system lacks a number of authorities, therapists and dietitians, even doctors. The absence of suitable care meant that some people would survive with metabolic syndrome until they pass away. This tends to make things difficult even more because treatment for high blood pressure in Ghana is costly and patients frequently ration it to save money. Health insurance nationwide delays in its coverage of other diet-related diseases such as diabetes; it also doesn’t cover devices to display blood sugar or some of the medication to treat the side effects that comes with diabetes.

According to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, the mortality rate connected with high body mass index more than doubled in Ghana in the 1990’s from about 14 per 100,000 to about 40 per 100,000, and is quickly approaching the global average of 54 deaths per 100,000. Affordability is another main issue that got rougher since the year 2014 as global oil prices dropped, which caused a strain in the Ghanaian economy. Public health officials see fast food on the rise to a global obesity epidemic that has hit hard in Ghana, which is one of many countries where obesity has doubled since the 80’s. The presence of KFC in Ghana is quickly arising, and it underlines the way fast food can influence lifestyles. 

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