growth era on the human body and health in the Korean peninsula, which split into two in 1945. For example, research conducted in 2002 revealed that people who grew up in North Korea in pre-school periods and then settled in South Korea had up to 13kg of weight and height differences up to 7cm. As another data, the average life expectancy between the people of the two countries is 11.5 years higher on the South Korean side.
Hidden Hunger problem, which the World Health Organization (WHO) affects 2 billion people all over the world based in the poor and developing countries, and causes an average of 1–3 million children under the age of 5 each year, unfortunately despite the destructive data it is not just a situation where poor people are confronted. Industrialized food production and stereotyping daily life arrangements have started to put the same malnutrition problem in front of developed societies.
For the first time in the history of the USA, the younger generation says that they live a poorer life than the previous generation and, on average, have a shorter life expectancy.
How can a nutritional problem occur that affects all income groups?
It is easy to explain this situation with plain logic for poor communities. However, the subject becomes a little more complicated when we try to explain the problem of developed societies. The results show that we need to consider food production and diet habits fundamentally. As an example of a country with a high level of welfare, while ⅙ of the population is struggling with Hunger, twice as much at this rate, the population is having obesity problems. The issue, which can bring together seemingly opposite situations, such as Hunger and obesity in the same geography, is now a social general nutritional problem.
There have been times when you felt hungry half or an hour after eating a hearty meal. Even if you are saturated with quantity and energy, your brain sends you hunger signals again because of the vitamins and minerals you cannot get from that meal. Such situations will cause you to eat more often and more. High-calorie and low-nutritional diets result in a great deal of obesity. Inadequate nutrition finds itself in the same unhealthy result as incomplete nutrition. Inadequate nutrition shows its effects not only on low or overweight problems but also on mental health problems.
The primary purpose of eating should not be to fill the stomach and daily calorie limits. Accepting this can be a little difficult for us. Because in our oldest childhood memories, we were told that we had to finish the meal on our plate. Previously, the important thing was to finish the amount and that amount. Quantity was ahead of quality. In the past, when the nutritional values per unit were higher in food products, it was not as crucial as today to think about which foods we consume and how much. What are Functional Foods? As I shared in the title article, the products consumed by the previous generations had richer contents than those of the same name we put on the market shelves today.
People can adapt to different nutritional conditions with mental and physical changes over time. Unfortunately, the industry’s rate of change in production is progressing faster than the adaptation rate human can show. We should use our minds more to close that time gap, and the food industry priorities should be re-ordered. The understanding that will replace calorie accounts with nutritional value calculations and the quest to reach more qualified foods will be essential soon in the name of healthy humanity, for the poor or the rich.
