Barriers to Healthy Eating
Paternalism, Perfectionism and Healthy Eating Policy
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Matteo Bonotti, Anne Barnhill
The political philosophy and bioethics literature on healthy eating policy is dominated by the debate between paternalists (i.e. those who would like to limit individuals’ liberty in order to promote their well-being) and anti-paternalists (i.e. those who criticize "nanny state" policies and would like to protect individuals’ liberty). We argue that this debate neglects the role that perfectionism (i.e. privileging certain conceptions of the good life over others) and neutrality (i.e. the view that the state should remain neutral between different conceptions of the good life) covertly play in the arguments for and against healthy eating policy. In this talk, we forefront perfectionism and neutrality. We identify forms of diversity relevant to healthy eating policy, including different conceptions of health, different ways of valuing health, and diverse food practices rooted in religious, cultural and ethical diversity. We consider how, in light of this diversity, healthy eating policy can satisfy the demands of neutrality.
Japan’s Food Education: Implications for Research, Policy and Practice
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Haruka Ueda
Japan is perhaps the first country that institutionalized the Basic Law on Food Education in 2005, locally called as “Shokuiku.” Since its inception, a growing number of studies in various disciplines have been carried out to assess its potential. However, its interdisciplinary nature has constantly challenged Japanese researchers to articulate its general achievements, benefits of interdisciplinary research, and potential disciplinary boundaries. Thus, to address this challenge, a systematic review of food education was conducted in this research. The data for the analysis were extracted from the studies published in Japanese and English mostly during the 2004-2017 period whose content mainly deals with “food education” (or Shokuiku) (n=535), effectively complemented with other relevant studies published in Japanese, English, and French. The findings relate to holistically identifying achievements and limitations of food education in Japan in medical sciences (including public health) (44% of the total number of the reviewed studies), life sciences (18%), and agricultural economics (16%), food and agricultural sciences (9%), and education/pedagogy (8%), elucidating power relationships across disciplines (notably, the dominance of medical and nutritional sciences) as well as re-orientating the interdisciplinary research on food education in Japan.
Food Access in Mexico City: The Food Desert Paradox
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ana Laura González Alejo, Ana Rosa Rosales Tapia
Since the late 1990s, the study of access to healthy food in urban contexts has gained relevance in developed countries through the concept of food deserts. However, in countries like Mexico such studies are scarce. Even though the prevalence of overweight and obesity for 2015 reached 52% of the population. Thus, the identification of areas with limited access to fresh food but marked presence of processed and industrialized products is decisive in order to recognize the relationship between the food environment and public health. The objective of this work is to identify spatial patterns of access to food in Mexico City trough quantitative methods. The analysis considers mobile areas of 100 m2 for a territory covering 1495 km2 through the method of neighborhood analysis. The results show that a large part of the urban area is supplied with fresh and healthy food in coexistence with a high density of commercial establishments that offer processed products. These spatial configurations imply greater access to industrialized foods through different forms of trade which can influences the consumption patterns of the population.
Potential Health Risk and Consumers’ Choice: Domestic Beef or Imported Beef?
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Makiko Omura
This paper analyzes the potential health risk of consuming imported beef that typically contain growth-hormones and whether such risk affect consumers’ choice of purchasing imported and domestic beef in Japan. The data on the prevalence of hormone-dependent cancers and beef consumption seem to suggest possible linkages, while consumers’ choice do not seem to be affected by this fact. The paper provides possible explanation for this and investigates the political economy of importation decision of such meat despite the strict regulation of growth-hormones usage for domestic cattle.
