Food
Nowadays, food travels long distances before reaching consumers, and it is therefore believed that consuming locally grown food would bring about a number of economic and environmental benefits. Despite some advantages, I believe that the disadvantages of this idea would be more significant.
Consuming locally grown food is advantageous in several ways. First, when produce is purchased and consumed locally, the local economy greatly benefits. More income will be generated for those involved in the food’s production, including farmers and growers, which will, in turn, enhance their standards of living. Eating locally grown food can also play a role in helping to protect the environment. The transportation of food around the world greatly contributes to global warming due to the large amount of carbon emissions produced during the process. Eating locally grown produce will help to reduce the distance that food travels, helping to reduce the negative effects of carbon emissions which are released from vehicles during transport.
In spite of the aforementioned benefits, I personally feel that the drawbacks need to be considered more carefully. For example, if non-locally grown foods are purchased less often on the market, local people will therefore have fewer opportunities to experience specialties and healthy products from other regions. Furthermore, if local foods become the more dominant products, price manipulation by local merchants can occur. Several food sellers will make use of this opportunity to increase prices to control the market in the long term. It will be difficult for people, especially lower income households, to buy essential foods for themselves, causing adverse impacts on their health.
In conclusion, I hold the belief that local food consumption, despite having economic and environmental merits, does more harm than good to people’s culinary experiences and local markets.
These days, it is quite common for people to eat foods that are not, or cannot, be grown or produced where they live. As a consequence, large quantities of food are either transported long distances within a country or imported from other countries. This essay will review some of the advantages and disadvantages of this trend.
Thanks to globalisation, the increase in efficient transportation between and within countries, and a growing trend in food culture, people can now enjoy a vast array of foods like never before. This trend has many advantages. Firstly, having access to a wide variety of foods from different regions can provide people with a highly nutritious diet that can help to promote health and prevent disease. For example, some kinds of nutrient-rich berries that can only be grown in Asia can now be enjoyed by people all over the world. Furthermore, with such a growing interest in exotic foods and food culture, people can experience a range of cuisine without leaving their own town or city.
However, this trend also comes with a number of disadvantages. For example, some communities around the world where exotic and rare foods are grown are losing their own access to their food sources. When demand for a certain food increases, the price also increases, and people in poorer countries where the food is grown can sometimes not afford to buy it anymore. Another problem with this trend is that the constant transportation of foods over long distances contributes to climate change due to the large amount of carbon emissions produced by transportation. And lastly, many foods that are transported long distances need to be treated with chemicals and preservatives which make them less healthy to consume.
Overall, although there are many benefits to having access to a wide variety of foods, personally, I believe that the disadvantages of this trend outweigh the advantages.
Childhood obesity has become a typical sign of deteriorating public health the world over, especially in Western countries, where massive amounts of unhealthy food is consumed on a daily basis. In this regard, some people believe governments should do whatever is needed to improve this situation. However, we should not single out governments as the only ones responsible for combating the childhood obesity crisis.
The role of a competent and responsible government is to ensure the well-being of its people. That is to say, if there is any serious threat to the people, as childhood obesity is, the government should be the one to acknowledge the threat, and implement effective solutions. However, apart from encouraging regular exercise and healthy eating habits, I do not feel that the government has any further role to play.
The duty to combat childhood obesity should not fall on governments alone, as parents are, for good reason, a greater source of influence on their children’s life. It can be seen that obese children are often malnourished because they do not receive appropriate nutrition from their food, a truth that reveals parents’ poor choice of diet for their kids. This fact also suggests that parents can have a direct impact on improving their children’s health by choosing healthy eating patterns that contain less sugar and fat. On the other hand, obesity is also caused by lack of physical activity. This can be exemplified by the sedentary lifestyle favored by a large number of youth nowadays. Parents are the only ones who can either encourage, or force, their children to do more physical tasks or exercise.
In conclusion, the government should of course do what they can to curb the obesity epidemic, no matter how small their impacts might be. However, I feel that the parents of obese children are to blame, and thus need to take responsibility for their kids’ unhealthy condition.