They are the food of the swamps of the underworld. Or worse, you may be living in one and not know it
It’s time to get off the bog: Living in areas that lack healthy food options increases the risk of having a stroke, a new study says.
It is eight o’clock in the afternoon. You came home tired from work. And wonder! There is nothing in the refrigerator. You have two options: order food at home or go down to buy dinner at one of the nearby restaurants. Although, if you think about it, they are exactly the same as what you can find in your mobile application, and without leaving the chair. That bar once closed that perpetual ready-to-spoon dish. The only green that remains in the street is the plants that decorate the pavement. Proximity, however, is not what is said to be close. Yes, my friend, it’s not that you have two things right, this is the problem: you’re living on swamp fodder.
According to experts, food swamps are healthy and unhealthy places to experience. Areas with a higher density of fast food and junk restaurants should not be confused (although they often coincide) with food deserts, which do not exist except for those in which butchers and supermarkets are more than a kilometer and a half away, limiting access. to fresh fruits, foods, and healthy foods.
Healthy options around you are important.
Image by Pexels from Pixabay
Is it time to move?
You may be wondering, what do I move if I can choose what to eat? Because, contrary to what happened in the classic Billy Wilder movie, temptation lives on below. And it is more than likely that it will be biting, or better said. So you’ll see what you do… Especially when you consider recent research from the American Heart Association, which says that living on swamp forage can increase the risk of stroke in people 50 years and older.
The neighborhood and food environment where we live are factors that influence our health more than we think, according to this study led by Dixon Yang, MD, a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia Medical University in Irving (NY). “Unhealthy diet negatively affects blood pressure, blood glucose and cholesterol levels, increasing the risk of stroke. Neglect of the home or some economic status, living in a neighborhood with many poor food options, can be an important factor to consider for many people.
Because the researchers limited themselves to reviewing data from the Health and Retirement Study, which was cross-sectional information from the US Department of Agriculture, they were unable to prove cause and effect between swamp foods and strokes, as in cross-sectional studies; The section plan is only focused on one time. What they did was to highlight the potential importance of alternative food areas as a structural factor affecting stroke, as participants who lived in areas with a higher number of unhealthy food outlets (both supermarkets and restaurants) were 13% more likely to have them. from a stroke than in the neighborhood with fewer strokes.
In this early stage of research, what is necessary for Yang is to raise awareness about the importance of the immediate environment of health. “In the future, it will be useful to focus on community intervention or control of cleanliness to improve cardiovascular health and hopefully reduce stroke risk.”
what we are, we eat
In addition to predicting some tumultuous events, what this study reveals is the way in which modern culture and society have changed the way we eat, a thesis that JM Mulet collected in his recently published book We eat what we are, from Ediciones Destino. In this commentary, the professor of Biotechnology at the Polytechnic University of Valencia and researcher at the Institute of Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology addresses the question: “Food, in addition to being necessary for health, is an image of our ancient history and culture; thus, each vessel hides a tradition and each flavor constitutes a unique moment of humanity.
“From the bone marrow to fast food”, the presenter investigates the relationship between being and eating, dissecting food from its origins to the present day, in order to better understand how we arrived at the food culture that defines us. One thing we still have time to do is get back if we don’t want to end up all living in a global food swamp.
