Leaving junk food market unregulated is making us a sick nation

It illustrates the slowness with which regulatory authorities acted in the case of harmful tobacco.
Leaving junk food market unregulated is making us a sick nation

There was a time when smoking was considered fashionable. The tobacco companies even recruited the medical community to push their advertisements and used doctors to endorse their brand of cigarettes. There was a time when they were even recommended to pregnant ladies. In the developed world, after studies showed a positive correlation between cigarettes and lung and throat cancer, regulations stepped in by the early 1960s, and the advertisement strategies of tobacco companies shifted to a more defensive tone. The companies continued to push their agenda in developing countries for another three to four decades, and it is only recently that statutory warnings about the dangers of smoking have become a norm in our country. In short, it took almost six decades from the research showing the ill effects of smoking to the present regulatory stage. Even now, advertisements of tobacco products continue in surreptitious forms, and many lives are sacrificed at the altar of the greed of the companies.

It illustrates the slowness with which regulatory authorities acted in the case of harmful tobacco. We are, however, facing a much bigger enemy and the authorities are yet to be even aware of the same. The cigarette advertisements of the last century may look horrifying now, but a few decades from now, the advertisements for fast foods, sweet beverages and many other processed junk food that we are bombarded with will look equally horrifying. India is facing a cruel irony. While we have the world’s highest number of malnourished children, we are also facing alarming levels of childhood obesity. Experts say it is taking the form of an epidemic. According to UNICEF’s World Obesity Atlas of 2022, the country will have more than 2.7 crore obese children by 2030. As such, Indians are more prone to diabetes and lifestyle diseases. It is already in the top five countries in adult obesity, and as per WHO standards, more than half of India’s urban adults are overweight. In comparison, only 25 percent of adults were using tobacco products, and only 30 percent consumed occasional alcohol. In other words, it is more likely that our food habits will kill us than any addiction to tobacco or alcohol. 

We are consuming junk food with gay abandon. The marketers target children with enticing advertisements, goodies and toys. After the carbonated dyed sugar water that Americans hard sell to the world as instant nirvana, the ultra-processed, sugar-filled cereals are replacing idlis or pohas at breakfast tables, and are targeted at children and teenagers with a long-term marketing plan. The time pressure of parents who choose convenience over their children’s health encourages such food habits. As kids grow up, they are already addicted to high-fat, high-sugar, easy-to-buy, cheap junk food. Imagine a tobacco company catching them young with such enticing ads to make them lifelong addicts. Food marketers and fast food chains are doing that now with zero restrictions or regulations. 

While it is easy to blame the multinational chains for trapping our youth into becoming junkies of unhealthy food, the desi food joints contribute equally, if not more, to this exploding health crisis. Our cities are crowded with snack corners and bakeries. What used to be occasional treats, available only on festive days, are now available all year round. The samosa or vada fried in the oil that could give crude oil a run for its money may be contributing to this epidemic of lifestyle diseases as much as any fast food chains with Italian and English-sounding names that sell stale bread dipped in mayonnaise or broiler chicken popcorn. Selling hyper-sweetened chai and oil-dripping pakoras could be only one of the few employment opportunities left for many of the untrained, uneducated youth in the jobless growth of our economy. Leaving the junk food market unregulated is making us a sick nation. 

Our dietary habits have changed for the worse in the last two generations. Being among the first to enjoy the benefits of liberalisation 31 years ago, I am one of the initial victims of fast food addictions. Though I was lean and athletic in my twenties, by my mid-thirties, I had become a junk food addict. I added up almost 40 kg, thanks to erratic sleep patterns, high work pressure, fizzy drinks and eating to tackle stress. As I crossed my early forties, I slowly woke up to the health crisis looming ahead. After cutting down on processed food, snacks and fizzy drinks, I now weigh what I did in my early twenties. Like smoking, narcotics or alcohol, recovering from food addiction is an arduous journey, as anyone who would have undertaken it would vouch for. Unfortunately, though food habits are killing more people than other harmful substances, the government or public is yet to wake up to the dangers of the same, and regulation is lacking seriously behind.  

Anand Neelakantan

Author of Asura, Ajaya series, Vanara and Bahubali trilogy

mail@asura.co.in

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