E-GEOGRAPHY ATT
Diet of an Average Youth: Singapore VS Mexico
In this globalised twenty-first century, the world is getting developed due to the advancement of the technology all around the world. However, the food consumption patterns in the world are still unable to bring about equilibrium. Why is that so? Is equilibrium achievable or rather necessary in our daily lives? Isn’t the advancement of technology the best solution for this food problem?
In actual fact, Singapore was having a problem of being lack of food in the post-war years. As a result, the Singaporean youth became underweight and suffered from nutritional deficiencies. Some of those underweight youths -- school children were given supplements of milk powder and eggs, to help them grow. Within this very same generation, the situation has yet reversed and we now have to put overweight school children through programmes of exercise and diet regimes to trim down their excess body fat!
Through research done these recent years, most of the Singaporean youths have the common problems whereby more than 80% of them do not consume an adequate intake of fruits and vegetables every day. It is quite a worrying problem however it is quite grateful to say that there is a fact that shows 70% of Singaporean youths having a fat and cholesterol intake that is within acceptable limits. This indicates the effort made by the Singaporean youths in improving their diet by cutting down oily food and choosing to eat only leaner meat.
As compared to the Mexican youths, it is much gratified as most of them are not having a health diet. Based on a research, only one-third consumed fruits and vegetables daily, a little less than one-half consumed dairy products daily, one-third drank soft drinks daily, and one-fifth of Mexican youths consumed sweets and salty snacks. Males even reported to have higher consumption of legumes. Besides, they have a higher calories intake, which are about 3000-3500 kilocalories per person per year. This happens mainly due to the types of food they consume such as tortillas, pancakes and corn which contains high calories.
One clear indicator for this to happen among Singaporean youths and Mexican youths would be the difference in purchasing power. As Mexican youths have higher amount spent on the family’s food budget and on the purchasing of food products, most of them are able to be “luxurious” in their food dietary. However, they are unaware that these foods tend to be higher in calories, saturated fat and cholesterol, and perhaps also low in dietary fibre. Their food expenditure for one week are around 1,862.78 Mexican Pesos or $189.09. This is quite a gigantic amount of money used which is much more than the Singaporean youths. Hence, with the higher purchasing power, the Mexican youths are probably having higher chances in accessing food due to their ability to afford food. Yet, this has caused some cons towards their health.
How does all this affect health? It is common knowledge that overeating leads to obesity. The food calories intake for a Mexican youth has yet far exceeded the normal value. High consumption of saturated fats increases the risk of heart disease, diabetes and certain cancers, and consuming too much salt predisposes to high blood pressure and stroke. From a study, heart disease, cancers and stroke are the top killers there, responsible for more than three-quarters of the deaths among Mexican youths today. In 2008 alone, these diseases claimed their lives of about 10,000 people. However, many of these deaths could have been prevented if they consume food according to healthy food consumption pattern.
Let us pause and ponder! Think of those people in the poor country, who are unable to afford food, always suffer from starvation and even malnutrition. Some of the people also die of hunger. They all die because they do not have enough food; however we also die because we have too much food! Isn’t that really irony? Why not we shared the food we have with the poor and achieve an equilibrium in food consumption so that to prevent death.
In conclusion, I think that technology is rather important for the world to have an equilibrium chance for accessing food. However, it is more important for us to know about sharing with one another. It might not only apply for food, instead it should be in any form of things. We should also be thankful for being given a chance to have enough food, perhaps considered a lot although it is not as much as Mexicans. Let us try to be more considerate for people in some less developed countries with less purchasing power in accessing food!
Written by,
Ng Boon Pin, 3 BN