Yes, obesity is a problem – but a greater one is the food industry and its greed | Letters
Ultra-processed foods are displacing traditional diets, warns Prof Kent Buse . Plus letters from Hugo Harper , Dr Pawan Randev and Patricia Hampton Your editorial on cancers in under-50s ( 8 October ) rightly names food among the culprits. But the confrontation it calls for should be aimed less at obesity than at what produces it. Obesity is the intermediary; the exposure is a food system…
The second world war brought about many hardships, but one such hardship that surprisingly had little negative impact was the restricted diet with little sugar, according to Roger Wilkinson and Helen Keats. This revelation comes in the wake of an article highlighting the staggering fact that British children are going hungry while 1.1 billion meals are wasted annually.
The juxtaposition of these two stories is striking. While one highlights the issue of food waste, the other compares the health of those who lived through the "hunger winter" in Rotterdam during the German occupation with their current well-being. This comparison suggests that the generation raised on sugar rations may be reaping the benefits of their parsimonious lifestyle.
What is particularly noteworthy is the fact that the average family throws away 156 meals a year, a figure that might seem shocking to some. However, those who experienced the sugar rationing during World War II seem to have an advantage in this regard. They not only scrape their bowls clean but also show restraint in throwing away food items that are only too moldy to scrape off.
As a result of these experiences, it appears that those who lived through the war may live longer than their contemporaries. This "smugness" over the potential longevity gained through such parsimonious living is palpable.
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- The surprising benefits of food rationing | Letters theguardian.com
