Healthy Food Essay

A nutritious diet is required to ensure a healthy and active lifestyle is maintained. However, not all countries are privileged enough to have the opportunity in maintaining that particular regime. Australia is classified to be fortunate to have ready accessible healthy, nutritious food. Australia produces adequate amounts of food, feeding 60 million people yearly. Although Australia is fortunate and a third world country, it is estimated 5% of Australians cannot access adequate, nutritious and safe food. Therefore, approximately 1.2 million individuals are experiencing food insecurity (Burns, 2004). Financial stress, unemployment, illness/disease, homelessness, lack of health and nutrition education are factors that contribute to poor access

Studies have found that Australia has a high incidence of obesity, 63% of Australian adults and 25% of Australian children are obese or overweight (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2016). This is a major concern as it puts additional pressure on healthcare systems and facilities. Costs of healthy food were found to be much more expensive than unhealthy food, therefore, fewer families and individuals are willing to eat a healthy diet as it’s an expensive expense (Rosier, 2016). The Australian Government has approved and executed a number of programs to help the people who are affected. Anglicare, St Vincent and Yourcare are just some services that provide food parcels, vouchers and meals for those who have poor access to healthy food. The Government also has a system called Centrelink which provides payments and services for Australian citizens who are eligible including, unemployed individuals, families and indigenous Australians. This system will enable costs of food to be covered and will reduce financial stress when accessing nutritional food, resulting in a healthier

According to the Kenya Government, “over 10 million people suffer from chronic food insecurity and poor nutrition”. Food access and availability are influenced majorly by increasing population, poor income, costs of nutritious food, sufficient food supply systems, diseases, resources and environmental disasters such as floods and droughts (Republic of Kenya, 2011). All factors are putting greater stress on the country to increase food access as the population is growing and an increase in food related health issues. There are interventions put in place by the Kenya ministries such as health and nutrition packages, off-take programme restocking, fish stocking, purchase food relief and animal feeds (Bahemuka, n.d.). Although the Government is addressing these issues and implementing measures Kenya is presently “one of fifteen countries most at risk of food insecurity”, according to the World Food Program Food Security Index (Ng’ang’a, 2015). Individuals don’t have access to nutritious, adequate and safe food to meet their own personal dietary needs for a healthy life. A healthy diet is nearly impossible for one-third of households, as the cost for nutritious food is too high for urban and rural people (Dixon et al., 2007). Therefore by not consuming an adequate nutritious meal on a regular basis, it can lead to many health issues. Malnutrition is one of the most