Overweight, Obesity, and Related Diseases - Adequate Food for All - page 138

makers and the public. The need for counteracting the health impacts of sedentary
lifestyles and poor diets is too important to be ignored and is a matter of cost, quality
of life, and social justice as well as a matter of health.
conclusIons And study toPIcs
1. Overweight and obesity have emerged as major public health problems at
the same time that basic problems of malnutrition have not been solved.
What do you think the priority should be for prevention in developing
countries?
2. Most of the predicted diabetes and premature heart disease in the world
(and associated health care costs) could be prevented by controlling the
obesity epidemic. What argument would you make to policy makers for
putting this first on the health care agenda?
3. The obesity epidemic threatens to exaggerate socioeconomic inequities in
health. Describe why this is the case and what could be done to avoid it.
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