Thaindian News

Washington, Dec 22 (IANS) Thanks to free market forces, fast food joints are mushrooming all over rich countries and promoting the obesity epidemic.

“It’s not by chance that countries with the highest obesity rates and fast food restaurants are those in the forefront of market liberalisation, such as the US, the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, versus countries like Japan and Norway,” said Roberto De Vogli, University of Michigan, who led the study.

Fast food, with a high fat and calorie content, is also tied to obesity and weight gain, besides insulin resistance and type II diabetes, another major global health threat, the journal Critical Public Health reports.

Obesity kills approximately 400,000 people every year in the US alone. Obesity research largely overlooks the global market forces behind the epidemic, De Vogli said, according to a Michigan statement.

For example, in the US and Canada, researchers reported 7.52 and 7.43 fast food restaurants per 100,000 people, respectively, said De Vogli, associate professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health.

Similarly, obesity rates among US men and women were 31.3 percent and 33.2 percent respectively and 23.2 percent and 22.9 percent among Canadian men and women respectively.

Compare that to Japan, with 0.13 fast food restaurants per 100,000 people and Norway, with 0.19 restaurants per capita.

Obesity rates for men and women in Japan were 2.9 percent and 3.3 percent, respectively. In Norway, obesity rates for men and women were 6.4 percent and 5.9 percent, respectively.

“In my opinion the public debate is too much focused on individual genetics and other individual factors, and overlooks the global forces in society that are shaping behaviours worldwide. If you look at trends overtime for obesity, it’s shocking,” De Vogli said.