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“Unhealthy diets are now a greater threat to global health than tobacco,” said Olivier De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur. “Just as the world came together to regulate the risks of tobacco, a bold framework convention on adequate diets must now be agreed.”
Those were strong words spoken at the World Health Organization’s annual summit last month.
De Schutter called for a host of government regulations including:
- taxes on junk food
- regulating saturated fats, salt and sugars,
- limiting or eliminating agricultural subsidies and advertising
While our physicians acknowledge morbidity caused by junk food, tobacco is still seen as the bigger issue.
In a recent Sermo Physician Poll, 44 percent of doctors thought tobacco was still worse for global health. 39 percent said tobacco and junk food are equally harmful. Only 17 percent agreed that junk food is worse.
Physicians Discuss Tobacco vs. Junk Food
While physicians chose tobacco the most, they hinted at changing times.
“Depends on what is meant by ‘worse’,” wrote an ophthalmologist. “If it’s calculated in terms of healthcare dollars, lost wages, disability, etc. I imagine junk food is far more costly.”
“I know a lot of old smokers,” said a vascular surgeon. “Not so many obese metabolic syndrome types.”
A family practitioner noted, “There’s a higher mortality from tobacco. However, recent studies are starting to show a shift.”
Global Impact of Obesity and Tobacco
The WHO has released a paper discussing the “double-impact” of obesity on developing countries. Many low- and middle-income countries are simultaneously dealing with infectious disease and under-nutrition and experiencing an upsurge in obesity, particularly in urban areas. “It is not uncommon to find under-nutrition and obesity existing side-by-side within the same country, the same community and the same household.”
Those same countries are also getting hit hard with tobacco use. Nearly 80 percent of the world’s smokers live in the same low- to middle-income countries. Nearly six million people per year die of tobacco smoke, about 600,000 of them via second hand smoke.
The WHO estimates 100 million deaths in the 20th century for tobacco and predicts as many as a billion deaths for this century. They do not have similar statistics for obesity at this time.
Our American physicians inside Sermo are starting to see the impact of increasing obesity statistics in their waiting rooms. Currently, 35.7 percent of Americans are clinically obese. As obesity rises, tobacco use is waning, 42.4 percent of adults smoked in 1965 in the US, today that number is only 19 percent.
As a physician, what do you think of junk food vs. tobacco use? What do you see impacting your patients more? If you’re an M.D. or D.O. please join the conversation.
