Hungarians eat terribly

People’s diet worsen worldwide, and in terms of a healthy diet, Hungary is among the worst countries – said The Lancet, a British medical journal.

HVG reports that diet has been worsening worldwide: although people eat more healthy food (including whole grain and fish), there is an even greater increase in the consumption of fattening and poor quality food. The Lancet, a British medical journal examined people’s eating habit sin 190 countries, and Hungary is among those eating the least healthy.

An international research team looked through 320 surveys from the period between 1990 and 2010, in which the participants evaluated their own diets. The experts examined the occurrence of 17 types of ordinary food and drinks, including healthy (fruits, vegetables, fish) and unhealthy (salt, processed meat, sugary soft drinks) options.

The study was financed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the British Medical Research Council (MRC), and was published in The Lancet, as part of a series of studies dealing with obesity.

The main findings of the study includes that older people eat more healthy, and women generally eat more healthy than men. Overall, the population of Chad, Sierra Leone, Mali, Gambia and Uganda have the healthiest diets.

Top 10 nations with the healthiest eating habits:
1. Chad
2. Sierra Leone
3. Mali
4. Gambia
5. Uganda
6. Ghana
7. Ivory Coast
8. Senegal
9. Israel
10. Somalia

The nations eating in the least healthy way include Armenia, Hungary, Belgium, the Czech Republic and Kazakhstan.

Top 10 nations with the least healthy eating habits:
1. Armenia
2. Hungary
3. Belgium
4. Czech Republic
5. Kazakhstan
6. Belorussia
7. Argentina
8. Turkmenistan
9. Mongolia
10. Slovakia

Regarding the consumption of healthy food, Tunisia, Barbados, Cabo Verde, Mauritius and Israel lead the list. In terms of unhealthy food, Azerbaijan, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Belgium and Heilongjiang (a province of China) are the leaders. For the United States, the experts got a mixed result: both the consumption of healthy and unhealthy food have increased.

Here’s the top 10 list of the healthiest cuisines around the world:
1. Tunisia
2. Barbados
3. Republic of Cape Verde
4. Mauritius
5. Israel
6. Quatar
7. Ciprus
8. Seychelles Islands
9. Mali
10. Grenada

Top 10 countries with the least healthy cuisines:
1. Azerbaijan
2. Slovakia
3. Czech Republic
4. Belgium
5. Heilongjiang (a Chinese province)
6. Iceland
7. Belorussia
8. Latvia
9. USA
10. Russia

”There is still a long way to go” said Darius Mozaffarian, an associate of the Tufts University and an author of the study. According to the expert, despite that people in the West are the largest consumers of junk food, China and India has been going up on the negative list. According to the results, in some countries of Africa and Asia, no development took place in the diet of people in the last 20 years.

The authors of the study also found that the efforts to handle obesity progress ”unacceptably slowly”, and only one in four countries drew up directives regarding healthy diet before 2010. According to the experts, the rate of childhood obesity can increase dramatically in less then a generation worldwide. Currently, only a few countries are taking steps to protect young people.

”The image of obesity has to be completely changed, if we want to stop global obesity” said Christina Roberto, a member of the Faculty of Public Health at Harvard. She added that ”On the one hand, we have to note that individuals, to a certain extent, are also responsible for their health. On the other hand, we must recognize that today’s food environment takes advantage of people’s biological, psychological, social and economic vulnerability, guiding them towards unhealthy food”.

According to the data of the World Health Organisation, in 2014, 39% of the world’s adult population were overweight and 13% were obese. A year earlier, 42 million children under 5 were battling overweight or obesity.

based on article of hvg.hu and nol.hu
translatad by Vivien Pásztai – Laura Kocsis

Photo: pixabay

Source: http://hvg.hu/