Human Sustainability: The importance of dietary education

Name: Makeda Smith | Week: 8 | Theme: Diet & Sustainability

Today in our society diet is spoken about quite frequently and is an important part of our lifestyles. But how does diet play into our mental state, our mood, our likelihood to experience illness and infirmity etc? How can we go beyond the obvious physical effects of diet be that a healthy and balanced diet or an unhealthy diet?

Human sustainability is all about the quality of human life and health is a big pillar that contributes to this quality of life among other things. Diet is so commonly discussed that it seems to be glossed over almost and the knowledge that comes about from deeper dialogues surrounding diet is not taught outright in my opinion. Understanding the human body and biology is almost left to those who study it as a subject, when its important for us all to understand and then transfer this understanding to diet and lifestyle choices. In our society we cannot simply be passive receivers of information but because a lot of us are we receive the bare minimum or what is deemed to be simple enough for the majority of people to comprehend. I think that these conversations should occur with more depth and scrutiny because it affects us all and is no less apart of sustainability as a whole because it is a factor in other topics such as agriculture and environment.

It is said that “On a very fundamental level, human development is what sustainability proponents want to sustain, and without sustainability human development is not true human development… If human development is about enabling people to lead long, healthy, educated and fulfilling lives, then sustainable human development is about making sure that future generations can do the same.”1 Dietary health has so many areas to consider and the science behind it is some important context to consider and I think that governments and those in charge of policies should at least attempt to expand on the basic information that is passed on to people, especially in schools. Nutrition and lifestyle choices are essentially conditioned, and we can be taught the benefits of certain lifestyles, foods, and choices.

Natural versus processed foods, how food is produced etc are areas that should be spoken about more instead of simply saying “eat fruit and veg” or “drink water”. It has been stated that “The common health problems prevailing in the society are malnutrition, cardiovascular diseases, type-2 diabetes, and several other types of noncommunicable diseases such as cancer. The food we consume should be balanced in all manner that it should provide required calories plus chemical energies, namely minerals, vitamins, enzymes, antioxidants, and pigments. There are some ingredients that provide functionality, which means food play additional roles as providing health benefits.”2 Veganism, vegetarianism, only eating organic foods etc are common areas that are considered in our society but the in depth discussions about nutrition and health are not as frequent as I think they should be.

This is just the tip of the iceberg and as an adult I would like to educate myself even further. I believe that the information should be more available and accessible for everyone and this can only be beneficial for society and help towards sustainability.

Sources:

Neumayer, Eric. Human Development and Sustainability, Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 2012. 13:4, 561–579, DOI: 10.1080/19452829.2012.693067

Ahmad, Saghir., and Nasser Abdulatif Al-Shabib. Functional Food Products and Sustainable Health. Springer: Singapore 2020 DOI: https://0-doi-org.pugwash.lib.warwick.ac.uk/10.1007/978-981-15-4716-4