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Almost everyone's diet is out of whack
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It's just a question of how much. Nearly every nation on Earth fails to get the right balance of nutrients
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whether it's because people indulge in processed meats and giant sodas, or because they lack basic access to nutritious legumes and grains
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And according to the global burden of disease study 2017, these bad diets are responsible for 11 million deaths worldwide
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That's more than any other individual risk factor, including smoking. The report used dietary data from 190
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95 countries to try to probe which foods or nutrients were responsible for the most deaths
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Too much sodium and not enough whole grains turned out to be some of the biggest killers
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claiming 3 million lives apiece in 2017, with insufficient fruit following up with 2 million deaths
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Combined, those three factors accounted for more than half of all diet-related deaths
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but that's not to say that that was true everywhere. The dietary factors with the most influence varied considerably by geography, as to the rate of deaths
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So, where do these numbers come from? Estimating how many deaths are due to any particular risk factor is inherently challenging
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especially on a global scale. In fact, researchers can't look at an individual death and determine which lifestyle choices
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lead to it. We may know a person died of heart disease and we may even know almost everything about their
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diet and lifestyle choices. But was it all the sugar or the lack of exercise or the fat-laden steak that impacted their
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heart health the most? No one can ever really know. Instead, statisticians use models to figure out how much added risk there is to eating too much salt or not enough beans
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Then apply those risks to the recorded deaths from diseases you might get from those poor dietary choices
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It an imperfect system but it the best we have and it worth bearing in mind that these are all estimations Mortality rates are of course influenced by more than just diet Countries with widely available health care may have similar rates of cancer heart disease and diabetes
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yet have fewer deaths from all of those causes. But the ways in which our diets come up short
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very considerably. So let's explore the findings. For nearly every food group in nutrient
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the vast majority of nations are getting either too much or not enough
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These imbalances and our diets clearly contribute to early deaths. But the study also notes that interventions
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to change diets haven't historically been very successful. There's no evidence as to what tactics work best
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or even if they work at all. And the authors point out that much of the effort
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has gone into changing consumer habits rather than forcing food industries worldwide to shift
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Telling ordinary people to eat less beef or more fresh veggies is all well and good
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But if folks don't have access to those choices, whether for pure lack of availability
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or because those healthier options are too expensive, it won't do much good. One thing is clear, nearly every global diet needs to change somehow
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Despite the many challenges in studying nutrition, we already know what constitutes a healthy diet
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Less red and processed meat, more fruits and vegetables, and whole grains
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The ways in which we address this problem are going to vary a lot. What works for sub-Saharan Africa may not necessarily work for Central Asia or South America
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but we have to address them somehow, and soon. Hey guys, thanks for watching. If you want more pop
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