Eating poorly is still not a choice; it depends in part on your social situation. The "new poor" are becoming more numerous in France, they are as likely to be exposed to the risk of obesity, cancer, cardiovascular disease ... Sociology of junk food with Guy Paillotin, permanent secretary of the Academy of Agriculture.
The term junk food appears in 1980. Symbolized by the fast foods at first, with their too fat diet, too sweet, the definition of junk food has expanded to a broader critique also denouncing the production model and the consumer society.
In France, since the 1950s, the price of fresh fruits and vegetables has increased much faster than the general price index, and the price of fat much more slowly.
Today we find ourselves in an environment where "fat" calories and "sweet" have never been cheaper, and thus also ubiquitous. The public health implications are disturbing, particularly in the field of weight gain, which becomes a new source of social inequality. (A French consumed 1 kg of ice per year in 1960 ... and 14 kg in 1995!).
The study by France Cavaillet shows that it is not easy to eat well at a low cost.
Poor households spend a larger share of their budget on food (22% for households below the poverty line against 18% on average) (4 € per person per day against € 6.3 for the total population ).
The minimum cost strictly necessary to comply with all the recommended dietary allowances for the French population was estimated by the optimization technique rations by linear programming, to 3.2 € per day per adult. However, people in precarious situations, including those involving food aid for food, spend an average of € 2.5 / day to their diet.
Consequences:
Precarious means having to be three times more likely to be obese, exposing themselves to cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, cancers and cholesterol (1/5 French have more than 2, 5 g / liter cholesterol in the blood ).
Intervention tools are at two levels: nutritional (manufacturing standards, information and education, monitoring of advertising ...) and economic (price, income, labeling standards ...). Examples:
- Lower VAT on the price of fruits and vegetables for access to the most disadvantaged
- Enhance the quality (…)
Another French article by Planète Santé published on Slate.fr:
Intellectual laziness and junk food: there he is related and which is the cause of the other?
Eat with it is of poor quality food originally a form of intellectual laziness? Should we rather think it is laziness that drives the consumption of such foods? These are thorny issues that gladly refer us to the paradox of the egg and the chicken. But here's a recently published in the journal Physiology & Behavior study has provide the answer. The authors show that based on bad fat diet seriously decreases the energy that can be developed by an organization. For now this demonstration is made in rats. Nothing says he does not hold true in humans.
What is "junk food"? In essence, a diet that is full of bad fats, too sweet or too poor in nutrients to meet our physiological needs. It is often associated with convenience foods that can be found in the fast-food companies (fast food). The definition of "junk food" has also been expanded to food production can offer it as the production model of capitalist society based on consumption.
The link between "junk" and obesity has long been established. WHO summarizes the scientific consensus as follows:
"The fundamental cause of obesity and overweight is an energy imbalance between calories consumed and expended." "Globally, there has been an increased consumption of energy-dense foods high in fat; and increased lack of physical activity due to the nature of increasingly sedentary many forms of work, changing transport and urbanization patterns, says WHO. The evolution of dietary habits and exercise is often the result of environmental and societal changes related to development and a lack of support policies in areas such as health, agriculture, transport , urban planning, environment, food processing, distribution, marketing and education."
Fats and sugars
In a word, we would have given in to the junk food out of laziness. This is a commonly accepted theory. However, it is now shaken by the study published in Physiology & Behavior. According to this work, the theory must be reversed. These are the basic plans too sugary and fatty foods, which undermine the general motivation, not the lack of energy that leads to the consumption of "junk food".
The researchers of the study are adamant in addition to causing obesity, compounds of saturated food diets too high in fat and sugar cause experimentally cognitive impairment in rodents. After having made dependent, that poor diet could deprive victims of a large part of their energy?
"Junk food" for rats
Aaron Blaisdell (Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles), who led the study, said he followed two different diets to two groups of six female rats for a period of six months. The first diet consisted of food standards rats usually minimally processed (ground corn, fish meal). Conversely, the components of the second system were highly processed, a lower quality, and contain more sugars, Synonyms characteristics of junk food. The two groups of rodents could eat at will.
Three months later, the researchers found a significant difference in weight between the two groups. Rats subjected to the regime "junk food" were significantly larger. "A diet led the animals to obesity, the other not" says Aaron Blaisdell.
The team tested the other motivation rodents by subjecting them to a test: if they could press a lever, they received a reward in the form of water or food. Rats sentenced to poor diet showed less initiative. They spaced their efforts longer breaks. During a session of thirty minutes, obese rats were resting two times longer than their counterparts in the other group.
No quick fix
After six months, the diets of the two groups were swapped for nine days. Overweight rodents have not made rapid progress; they have not lost weight and have not improved their performance in the game of leverage. Same observation in the other group: rats did not gain weight and have not balked at the task motivation during the test. All of which suggests that it is indeed the feeding behavior in the long term and not the one-time consumption of "junk food" that causes obesity and has an impact on the motivational balance. Aaron Blaisdell, the experience is more clear: "There is no quick fix," he says.
Besides the differences in weight and motivation, the team observed a number of cancerous tumors much more important in the spleens of the group followed a diet high in fat.
The chicken and egg
"A diet based on junk food makes you hungry, that one is a rat or a human, says Aaron Blaisdell. Often accused overweight people to be lazy, to lack discipline. In light of our results, we believe that people do not necessarily become obese because they are lazy, contrary to what the media often convey. Our data suggest that obesity caused by food is a cause, not an effect of laziness. Or heavily processed foods cause fatigue, or they lead to obesity, which in turn causes fatigue."
The researcher said to have upset her diet there five years to come to a closer nutrition that "our ancestors". He dismissed processed foods, bread and pasta, and eat seafood, eggs, vegetables, meat ... In the end, the work and findings in changing our view of "junk food "It is both the cause and the result. As in the case of the egg and the chicken.
