The Food and Nutritional Information Center
This is the American government information source for all the statistics on obesity nutrition and dietary advice. In the UK there is a similar organisation which offers advice on nutritional diets and publishes a book of nutritional facts. Both have a pivotal role to play in the education of the country when it comes to diets.
There is no doubt that obesity and the resulting health care needs are costing both countries a fortune and most of that comes from tax payer’s money. Doctors and all health practitioners want to see even greater efforts made by the likes of the FNIC in getting the message across. Unfortunately they are fighting the commercial interests of some very big players in the food market, mainly the big fast food chains. Burgers and fried onions, French fries and tomatoes are just part of the diet which has proved to be unhealthy. Pizzas and big stodgy rolls full of precooked meats are not that great either.
But the problem is they are very popular as a way of filling you up and at a relatively low cost. The economics are that cheap food whilst unhealthy is chosen over the more expensive ‘good for you’ food. So people who are finding life tough will go for a cheap option even though in the long term the may end up paying out in hospital bills.
In the UK the money for all treatment comes out of the central National Health Service (NHS) and there are doctors around who are getting increasingly aggravated by having to treat cases of obesity which could have been avoided with better education.