【世界饥饿，肥胖流行】保持一定的饥饿感

　　在这个依然没有消除饥饿的世界，肥胖却悄然蔓延，成为又一个让人头疼的全球性流行病。人们通常将肥胖问题归结于个人不良的生活方式，但事情的根源也许远非如此??　　It’s easy to make the assumption that obesity is an individual problem, having more to do with personal health than with social justice. After all, people make their own decisions about what they put on their plates and how much they put in their mouths.
　　But many people are starting to see not only the public health consequences of the obesity epidemic, but also the broader forces that contribute to it.
　　And “epidemic” isn’t too strong a word for the growing problem of obesity. The numbers in the U.S. are unsettling1), with startling increases over the past few decades. But the worst may be yet to come, as billions of people in formerly developing countries are gradually globalized into “fast-food nation” lifestyles.
　　The transition has already begun. According to a recent U.N. report, more than 1 billion people around the world are overweight. Each year excess weight and obesity cause 2.8 million deaths—65 percent of the world’s population now lives in countries where being overweight kills more people than being underweight. And it’s only going to get worse: According to Olivier De Schutter, the U.N. special rapporteur2) on the right to food, by 2030 as many as 5.1 million people in poor countries will die each year before the age of 60 from unhealthy diets and diet-related diseases such as diabetes3), 1.3 million more than today.
　　The definitions of hunger and malnutrition4) are changing, and as a result so are the responses—but perhaps not quickly enough.
　　In the 1960s and 1970s, the cause of hunger was diagnosed by most officials as primarily a lack of adequate calories, and thus the response was a singular5) focus on increased outputs. But the diagnosis was at best simplistic6)—even decades ago, in a time of extensive famine, hunger was rooted as much in poverty and powerlessness as in a literal shortage of food.
　　That’s even truer today. The world produces enough food to feed everyone—17 percent more calories per person than 30 years ago, according to the World Hunger Education Service, enough to provide everyone in the world with sufficient nourishment. The main cause of hunger is still poverty (and the economic and political systems that cause poverty), along with war, racism, and, increasingly, the effects of climate change.
　　And while undernutrition is still the main hunger issue in the developing world, obesity is more and more being recognized as another form of malnutrition.