Refleksi : Anda gemuk, pasti orang kaya. Kalau petinggi NKRI gemuk, memberi 
indikasi kepada Anda bahwa petinggi tsb orang kaya, Dari mana kekayaannya tidak 
usah dipersoalkan, karena mereka dikayakan oleh rakyat. Hehehe 

http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2716&Itemid=594


The Fat Rich and the Thin Poor 


Written by John Berthelsen    
Friday, 24 September 2010 
Two reports demonstrate huge disparities in nutrition across the world 

On the same day that the Asian Development Bank and two other organizations 
announced that there are 578 million hungry people in Asia, the Organization 
for Economic Cooperation and Development said people in the OECD's 30 member 
countries are fat and getting fatter at an alarming rate. 

In a graphic indication of how sharp the divide remains between the developed 
and developing worlds, the OECD found, 50 percent or more of the people in 
member countries are overweight.

The OECD study, titled Obesity and the Economics of Prevention: Fit not Fat, 
says that since the 1980s, surveys in the wealthy nations have begun to record 
a "sharp acceleration in the rate of body mass index, which in many countries 
grew two to three times more rapidly than in the previous century."

"In the developed world, people per capita have greater purchasing power and 
their expenditure on food is a relatively smaller portion of their income," 
said Purushottam Mudbhary, chief of the policy assistance branch at the FAO 
Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific in Bangkok in an interview. "People in 
the developed world can afford to buy high quality food, animal protein, 
various kinds of fruits, eggs, meat, milk, dairy. Also this is an issue of how 
much physical activity they have." (See Chart below)

The efficient distribution of food is also problematical in much of the 
developing world, Mudbhary said.

Before 1980, the OECD study found, adult obesity rates in the developed 
countries were generally well below 10 percent. But since then, rates have 
doubled or tripled in many countries. At the top of the list, as expected, is 
the United States, with 34 percent of its population considered to be obese and 
68 percent overweight. Mexico has a higher number of overweight people, with 70 
percent of its adult population overweight but 30 percent obese.* New Zealand 
and Australia are not far behind. Australia, according to the report, has been 
growing fatter faster than any other country in the OECD over the last two 
decades. The proportion of people overweight is expected to rise another 15 
percent by 2020. 

A healthier diet keeps the developed Asian nations at the bottom although they 
are still in the unhealthy zone. Japan reports that 24 percent of its people 
are overweight, 3 percent obese. South Korea reports 31 percent of its people 
are overweight, 4 percent obese.

China reports 29 percent of their population are overweight, 2 percent obese, 
Indonesia 26 percent overweight, 1 percent obese. India reports that 16 percent 
of its people are overweight, only 1 percent obese, giving some idea of the 
skewed nature of nutrition distribution in the country. As Asia Sentinel 
reported on Sept. 23, for a vast proportion of the 150 million school children 
in India, their primary meal is a lunch subsidized by the Indian government. Up 
to 70 percent of low-income adolescent girls in India suffered from anemia 
because blood lost during menstrual cycles meant iron wasn't being replaced. 
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimated that 251 million 
people in India were malnourished in 2004-2006, the last year for which figures 
were available in a 2009 report.

China has made vast strides in cutting malnutrition, according to the same 
report. But still, 127 million people remained underfed during 2004-2006. 
Bangladesh had 46.2 million undernourished, Pakistan 36.5 million. 

Accordingly, the ADB, the Food and Agriculture Administration and the 
International Fund for Agriculture announced they would join forces to attempt 
to tackle widespread hunger across Asia. Despite impressive gains, "The Asia 
and Pacific region is still home to some 578 million hungry people, some 
two-thirds of the world's hungry, so it is high time to move out of our comfort 
zones and forge new partnerships, collaborative arrangements, and networks with 
the single objective of achieving food for all," said ADB President Haruhiko 
Kuroda.

As much as US$120 billion must be invested in primary agriculture and 
downstream services, the three organizations said in a combined news release, 
to stave off hunger. 

Meanwhile, in the developed world, one of the problems is that lots of fat 
people don't believe they're fat, according to a Harris Interactive/HealthDay 
poll published in early September. The poll found that 30 percent of people who 
are overweight think they are actually of "normal" size and 70 percent of obese 
people say they are merely overweight. Some 39 percent of morbidly obese people 
think they're overweight, but not obese. Many of those polled who did feel they 
were heavier than they should be cited lack of adequate exercise as the main 
reason, overeating second. 

The OECD report says obesity has become an epidemic, "the result of multiple, 
complex and interacting dynamics, which have progressively converged to produce 
lasting changes in people's lifestyles. The supply and availability of food 
have changed remarkably in the second half of the 20th century, in line with 
major changes in food production technologies and an increasing and 
increasingly sophisticated use of promotion and persuasion."

Decreased physical activity at work, increased participation of women in the 
labor force, increasing levels of stress and job insecurity, longer working 
hours for some jobs, have all contributed directly or indirectly to the 
epidemic, the report says, along with government policies including urban 
planning policies that have left scant opportunities for physical exercise or 
have contributed to the rise of slums, "deprived and segregated urban areas 
that provide fertile grounds for the spread of unhealthy lifestyles and ill 
health."

The cost to society from obesity is enormous. The obese live an average of 
eight to 10 years less than those who eat less. The risk of death for an 
overweight person of average height increases by 30 percent for every 
additional 15 kg of weight. Health care expenditure for the obese is at least 
25 percent higher than for those of normal weight. 

"In 10 European countries, the odds of disability, defined as a limitation in 
activities of daily living, are nearly twice as large among the obese as in 
normal weight persons." 

The obese also suffer because they are less likely to be hired into the work 
force. "White women are especially disadvantaged in this respect, the report 
says. The obese earn up to 18 percent less than those of normal weight, they 
tend to miss work more often, they are less productive and they run up more 
disability payments.

* The story originally showed that Mexico had more overweight people than the 
US. But the OECD bar graph didn't compare like to like.  The organization has 
supplied a new, corrected graph. It appears below.

 



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



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