Why Helping the Poor Is Not Enough
There's a surprising new global leader in diabetes: China. And the problem is larger than previously thought. National prevalence more than tripled in a decade; as of 2010, 1 in 10 Chinese adults had diabetes, with 16 percent more pre-diabetic. This nearly equals the rate of disease in the United States and exceeds that of other Western nations. One pharmaceutical executive calls China "the world's capital for diabetes." Most of these cases are Type 2 diabetes, developed in adulthood and linked to poor eating habits, obesity, and sedentary lifestyle. This is a natural result of more Chinese adopting an excessive and sedentary—some might say Western—diet and lifestyle.
In a sense, this bad news contains a seed of good news: a startling growth in prosperity in our lifetime, not only in China but around the world. Remember when your mother told you to eat your peas because the hungry children in China would be grateful to have such a meal? Well, far fewer of them are going without a meal. The downside—and a terrible irony—is that a place which once served to embody poverty now is a land of excess (and its attendant sicknesses) rivaling our own.
At this point in history, if we're honest with ourselves as we watch newly affluent nations like China choose lifestyles of excess, we see that over-consumption and self-indulgence are not Western problems—they are human problems. We don't seem to know how to steward abundance. With access to the healthiest foods on the planet, we choose McDonald's. When we have leisure time to keep our minds and bodies active, we lie around and watch TV. When our income rises and we have the resources to share with others, our tastes become more expensive—so we spend more to keep ourselves comfortable.
If comfort is our chief purpose, we should be the happiest people in history. Yet we are far from it. According to the World Health Organization, depression was the third-largest cause of the global disease burden in 2004—and it's expected to be number one in 2030. Since the late 1960s, worldwide suicide rates have increased by 60 percent. And at least one study found that worldwide—among prosperous nations, developing countries, and those in transition—there is no long-term relationship between happiness and economic growth.
Wealth and education can change the world, but they can't save it. Our appetite for self-destruction is predictable. Our corruption is unavoidable. As material needs are met and economic growth gives us physical security, our sin problem is even more apparent in relief. And we have no one to blame but ourselves.
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Beth
Being the most comfortable does not make us the happiest at all. I blogged about that recently myself at http://www.elizabethingersoll.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-cost-of-comfort.html. Seems several of us are thinking the same things...
Olivia
The North Koreans do not have a problem with "over-eating". They are dying from starvation if torture & murder does not kill them first. Most mainline Christians don't know that fact or many others concerning our fellow persecuted believers because American Christians suffer Biblical anorexia, feelings over facts & lack of true empathy.
Steve Skeete
I marvel when I hear people talk about the "American 'poor". 'Poor' is a relative term. People in Haiti are poor, the vast majority of them. They are also poor in Somalia, which is considered a 'failed state'. However in the USA, someone earning between 20-25,000 US dollars annually would consider themselves poor, I am told. Compare that to persons living off one US dollars a day in many parts of the world. Obesity in wealthy countries like the USA is better linked, in my opinion, to inadequate information about nutrition and the harm that comes through consumption of excess sugar, salt, saturated fats, and lack of exercise rather than from poverty, since one does not have to be wealthy to eat well in the USA. None of this though detracts from the fact that "it is hard for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven'. It was true when Jesus said it and it is true today.
Stan Guthrie
Fox, You are right in point out that - in the US - the obesity problem is more complex than a formula of "greater wealth = more food consumption." However, we must keep in mind that a "poor" person in the US is still wealthy compared to the rest of the world's population. And very very few Americans find themselves truly unable to obtain food or even unable to obtain nutritious food. But this article is not about obesity; it's about spiritual poverty.
fox
I'm troubled by this article's connection of obesity, affluence, and sin. While obesity rates in the United States have been rising among all income levels, there is an strong correlation between little education, lower income levels and obesity. The occurrence of obesity is even greater in children of low income families. I am uncomfortable with the resulting implication- that those who do not have access to healthy and expensive food, or the education to understand the results of their food choices, or poor access to quality health care that can address their health need- are necessarily wallowing in "spiritual poverty" as well. I am sure the author wrote this with good intentions, but even a cursory Google search would have pulled up numerous studies indicating that obesity rates in the US are more strongly correlated with poverty, not wealth.
Margaret
great thoughts! Didn't know that about China
Tim
"If comfort is our chief purpose, we should be the happiest people in history. Yet we are far from it." Excellent, Amy. We have the prosperity to attain comfort, yet at what cost? We are more likely to be afflicted due to our prosperity. Money not only doesn't buy happiness or peace or well-being. It enables just the opposite. Assault weapons cost money. To get one, a person either has to have the money or swipe the weapon from someone who does. And when school children are shot and killed in Newtown in Connecticut, or Srebrenica in Bosnia (1993), or Dunblane in Scotland (1996), or Beslan in North Ossetia (2004), or Houla in Syria (2012), we see that there is reason not to be the happiest people in history. Sorry that this is not speaking directly to the matter you raised with China's issues, Amy. I hope I have stayed within the general subject of what prosperity does and doesn't do. Tim P.S. I wrote on firearms a bit today at my place, but not at length on the Connecticut tragedy specifically.
MelissaT
I'm nearly done reading "The China Study" which has fascinating insight into western "diseases of affluence". I find myself turning pages and just gasping at the ways my ignorance and selfishness have robbed me of health. I mourn for our country as it seems that God is giving us over to our appetites.
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