Being poor condemns you to eat a lot and bad

The choice of food by society is linked to economic and cultural status, said the specialist of the Institute of Social Research (IIS) of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), Gilberto Giménez.

During the lecture "Inculcation habits and induction of addictions: a powerful amalgam in the industrial food marketing strategy", the specialist commented that the taste of human beings is not innate and on the contrary, it is acquired over the years according to the context of each person.

He stressed that human beings do not always choose freely, especially when they lack economic resources. It is conditioned to choose foods less expensive, but more harmful to health.

As the social hierarchy rises, food consumption decreases, the proportion of fat and heavy foods that make you fat and which are also cheaper decreases, and the proportion of fat-free, light and easy-to-digest foods increases, "he explained.

Among the harmful foods are the ultra-industrialized fatty products induced by the strategic combination between food marketing and advertising, which generate the induction of addictions.

This massively imposes diets based on industrially processed foods, which cause endemic diseases and generate very serious public health problems. "

We were not born eating fast food, our primary tastes in the world of childhood and motherhood has not been that, "said the social scientist.

He regretted that since the eighties, Mexico imitates the food of countries like the United States. According to data from the World Health Organization (WHO), the neighbor of the north is the nation that consumes the most industrialized products, and in second place is Mexico.

From the academy and the research centers what we would like is to totally or partially transform the rules of the game of the production field. Explore the possibility of making a symbolic revolution from within this field based only on science. "

Gilberto Giménez explained that food marketing plus the induction of addictions have become a powerful and deadly weapon. It implies the combination of symbolic, biological and physiological violence, "and this implies that in Mexico, diabetes takes the lives of 80,000 people a year."

In his conference held in the main auditorium of the UNAM ISS, he stressed that the strategy is not to confront transnational corporations producing ultra-processed foods, but "to turn them into allies to try to reduce the supply and demand (of products) ), "He concluded.