The results of the 2016 National Health and Nutrition Survey (Ensanut) have been released. It serves to evaluate certain points related to the nutrition and health of the population according to the main concerns on the political agenda, as well as to assess the strategies undertaken by the government regarding chronic degenerative diseases, overweight, and obesity.
How are we doing? In summary, nothing new on the front. The combined prevalence of overweight and obesity has remained steady. There was only a significant decrease in overweight children, but not in those who are obese.
I don’t want to bore you with numbers. When analyzing the document and the type of survey questions, we understand why we are so lost in combating obesity. Literally, because we dedicate ourselves to adapting and copying reductionist dietary strategies from our northern neighbor.
Let me give you several examples: they evaluate “eating behavior” with a section of questions about the main obstacles to maintaining a healthy diet, and to assess government strategies regarding these issues. You read gems like: “81.6% of the adult population likes the taste of sugary drinks; however, the majority (92.3%) does not consider them healthy.” Do we really need a survey to tell us about the human predisposition to liking sweetness as an evolutionary matter spanning millions of years? A vast majority will respond that they prefer this kind of taste. Another example: “Nationally, 40.6% of the population reads the nutritional labeling of packaged foods and bottled drinks.” Imagine being asked: do you read the nutritional labeling of packaged foods and drinks? Through a process of social accommodation, you’ll obviously say yes (you don’t want to seem ignorant), just as you read the shampoo ingredients when you forget your phone in the bathroom. It continues: “76.3% of the population does not know how many calories they should consume daily.” As if knowing the calories I need would awaken in me an urgent desire to count everything I eat. As if everyone from taxi drivers to politicians were obliged to quantify the calories they need. Suppose they know them, and then what? Does that mean people start counting and transforming their diet? This kind of absurdity illustrates the poverty of perspective regarding the strategy to follow: counting calories and exercising.
Regarding government campaigns, they say “75% believe that these types of campaigns contribute to preventing overweight and obesity.” One thing is for someone without experience—or obligation to have it—in health strategy to find it effective, and another is for it to actually be so. How am I supposed to know if they prevent or not, if I am not a survey? I mean, that’s what these measurement instruments are for, right? It’s like an inception: a subjective survey within an objective survey.
If the data weren’t enough to show the error of the strategy: they discover that their famous “Check yourself, measure yourself, move yourself” is not understood as they thought. While “measure yourself” was conceived as something related to the consumption of fats, sugars, and salt, they found that the population associates “measure yourself” with body dimensions.
Finally, they offer us a pearl: among the final conclusions, they say that housing conditions improved and there are more bilingual children, between indigenous languages and Spanish. Wasn’t this the national health and nutrition survey? Or are we now engaging in intersectoral collaboration when it suits us?
#obesity #nutrition #survey #ensanut #publichealth
— This article was originally published in Spanish by Liliana Martínez Lomelí. Translation generated with AI from the original text.