Unhealthy Diets Contribute to More Deaths Per Year Than Smoking

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The study involved 195 countries around the world and revealed that unhealthy diets are actually quite dangerous

A global study has come to some rather frightening conclusions: it has been proven that poor diets result in more deaths per year than smoking. Each year, more than 11 million deaths worldwide are related to the foods we eat, many of which are the result of preventable risk factors for noncommunicable diseases.

According to a study published in The Lancet, society as a whole does not consume enough healthy foods, including whole grains, nuts, seeds, fruits and vegetables. In addition, people consume too much sugar, salt and processed meat.

The researchers analyzed the diet of people in 195 countries through a survey, also examining household sales and expenditure data, and then assessed the impact of a poor diet on the risk of death. diseases, including heart disease, cancer and diabetes. What they found was not totally surprising, but nevertheless a bit shocking.

"In 2017, 11 million deaths were attributable to dietary risk factors. High consumption of sodium, whole grains and fruits has been the major dietary risk factor for deaths and DALYs (disability-adjusted life years) in the world and in many countries, "revealed l & # 39; study.

"This study shows that a poor diet is the leading risk factor for death in most countries of the world," said author Ashkan Afshin of the Institute of Metrology and Research. health evaluation of the University of Washington. These unhealthy diets are "a more important determinant of poor health than tobacco or high blood pressure".

Unfortunately for many, eating fresh and organic foods is not always an option. "Paying ten more fries for my child to eat fries and ice cream while playing at McDonald's, sometimes it feels like five-star dining," says writer Sa'iyda Shabazz. And with the Trump administration trying to decide whether valid people who do not work should be entitled to public food aid, the numbers below are likely to increase over time.

According to the CDC, the prevalence of obesity is 18.5%, affecting approximately 13.7 million children and adolescents. "In boys as in girls, the prevalence of obesity decreases with the increase in income, but this relationship is not consistent between racial and ethnic groups," they said.

The study also found that the United States ranked 43rd out of 195 countries and China ranked 140th. Israel, France, Spain and Japan had the lowest number of diet-related deaths.

"In general, countries that have a diet close to the Mediterranean diet, which consumes more fruits, vegetables, nuts and healthy oils [including olive oil and omega-3 fatty acids from fish] are the countries where we see the smallest number of [diet-related] dead, "said one of the authors of the study.

But the solution is more complex than most people think. If everyone filled three-quarters of their plates with fruits, vegetables and whole grains, many people think we would miss them. A study published in the journal PLOS One revealed that fruits and vegetables would eventually become scarce.

"We simply can not adopt a healthy diet in today's global agriculture system," said Evan Fraser, director of the Arrell Food Institute at the University of Guelph. "At the global level, we have a gap between what we should eat and what we produce."

Clearly, there are a number of solutions that need to be in place at the same time to ensure that the world has access to healthy foods, but the study shows that unhealthy nutrition over a lifetime will certainly catch up.