The globalisation of bad food and poor health
By Colin Todhunter – The globalisation of bad food and poor health: Sustainable development or sustainable profits
The proportion of deaths due to cancer around the world increased from 12 percent in 1990 to 15 percent in 2013. Globally, cancer is already the second-leading cause of death after cardiovascular diseases.
In India, government data indicates that cancer showed a 5 percent increase in prevalence between 2012 and 2014 with the number of new cases doubling between 1990 and 2013. The incidence of cancer for some major organs in India is the highest in the world. Reports have also drawn attention to rising rates of breast cancer in urban areas, and, in 2009, there was a reported increase in cancer rates in Tamil Nadu’s textile belt, possibly due to chemically contaminated water.
The increase in prevalence of diabetes is
also worrying. By 2030, the number of diabetes patients in India is
likely to rise to 101 million (World Health Organisation estimate). The
number doubled to 63 million in 2013 from 32 million in 2000. Almost 8.2
percent of the adult male population in India has diabetes. The figure
is 6.8 percent for women.
In India, almost 76,000 men and 52,000 women in the 30-69 age group
died due to diabetes in 2015, according to the WHO. The organisation
reports South-East Asia had a diabetic population of around 47 million,
which is expected to reach 119 million by 2030.
A new study in
The Lancet has found that India and China continue to have the largest
number of underweight people in the world; however, both countries have
broken into the top five in terms of obesity.
