Food, Agriculture

For more than a decade marketers of prepared foods have used “front of package” labeling to promote the supposed health benefits of their products to consumers. Today supermarket shelves are lined with items labeled “low in calories” or “better for you” aimed at children and their parents. As concerns have grown about childhood obesity, however, the veracity of these claims has come into question.

The use of genetically modified corn seeds has been the subject of much debate, as questions persist over cost-effectiveness, yield, long-term effectiveness and the impact on non-GE plants. The controversy runs deep enough that some countries continue to ban genetically modified crops, yet they make up the majority of corn, soybeans and cotton grown in the United States.

Energy drinks, once aimed exclusively at athletes, have become a significant force in the worldwide beverage market. They come in a dizzying variety of colors, often feature exotic ingredients — guarana, ginseng, and ginkgo biloba, to name just a few — and aren’t shy when it comes to health claims. Marketers’ efforts to rebrand such drinks as “nutrition beverages” have continued to spur sales growth, though this comes at a time when the content of the drinks is coming under increased scrutiny.

Public health research has found that populations of lower socioeconomic status have less access to healthier foods, which are associated with a decreased prevalence of chronic diseases. Such foods include fresh produce, low-fat dairy products and lean meat. This decreased access is due to the prevalence in poorer communities of small stores that primarily sell foods with a long shelf-life, as opposed to the fresher, more perishable foods that are essential for a high-quality diet.

The increased global production of biofuels such as ethanol has become a subject of controversy, as land formerly dedicated to the growing of food crops is repurposed to meet energy needs. Each year, more crops such as sugar, palm oil, corn and cassava are diverted for these purposes.

Transgenic crops are grown on more than 300 million acres of farmland around the world. In the United States 94.6% of the cotton planted is genetically modified, commonly to resist pests, pesticides or both. Given the dominance of some transgenic crops, concerns have been raised over the power of companies that control GM seeds as well the potential for gene flow between modified and conventional varieties.

As recently as the 1990s, larger body types had positive associations in many cultures. As the mass media has spread images of ultra-slim bodies, however — and as obesity has been spotlighted as a public health issue in many countries — heavier bodies have become stigmatized across the world, even as rates of obesity are rising.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has an open investigation into the genocide that occurred over the last decade in Darfur, Sudan. Though mass extermination is the chief focus of the international law, Article II of the 1948 Genocide Convention also bans “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction.”

Between 1966 and 2003, the consumption of high-fructose corn syrup and glucose syrup through beverages increased more than 11-fold in the United States. Because soft drinks now account for almost 50% of the added sugars present in U.S. diets, understand the broad range of physiological impacts that these beverages have on their consumers is essential.