Public health specialist Akif Akalın says that healthy diet is only a privilege for elites in capitalist societies and only a small part of laborers can have a balanced diet.
Public health specialist Akif Akalın replied the questions of soL about healthy diet and laborers. He stated eating fast-food is the most dangerous dietary habit, related to all kinds of health problems today from cancer to chronic diseases. Adding that the fast-food restaurants entered Turkey nearly 30-40 years later than the advanced capitalist countries, Akalın emphasized in all advanced capitalist countries, especially in the United States, fast-food is not only the fastest but also the cheapest way of eating. In Turkey, on the other hand, fast-food is not cheap and affordable for low income families and they can be regarded lucky for this ironically.
Akalın went on pointing out that urbanization and industrialization are seen as the reasons behind fast-food habit: “In capitalist production, time means money. In Charlie Chaplin’s ‘Modern Times’, there is a scene that satirizes what capitalists can do to save on a laborer’s lunch time. However, it is possible to give different answers to the problems of industrialization and urbanization. For example, in Soviet Union and other socialist countries, hot meals were distributed during lunch time not only at schools and working places but also in other public spaces. Also in the ‘neighborhood kitchens’, those who did not have opportunity to cook could have health food. Such practices were also implemented in some Western countries and in our own country. But this practice unfortunately started to be abandoned increasingly as result of the breakup of socialism and regression at working class movement.”
Akalın highlighted that in Turkey, the minimum wage has been determined based not on a balanced diet but on adequacy (2000 calories for women and 2500 calories for men). He concluded that in Turkey, the cost of reproducing labor is based on bread and sugar, but this diet is unhealthy and a balanced diet is impossible for the working class.
THE RICH LIVE LONGER
Akalın said that the cost of protein sources is pretty high and the healthy diet is only possible for elites in capitalist societies.
Furthermore he pointed out that in advanced capitalist societies today, childhood obesity has become epidemic and it is mostly considered as the disease of children of laborers and impoverished sections. Akalın stressed that in advanced countries such as USA and UK, life expectancy of the rich is 9-10 years higher than the impoverished. Taking into consideration that the diseases are mostly related to eating habits, it is not difficult to see the relation between eating and prosperity. Late-industrialized countries like Turkey encounter these kinds of health problems 30-40 years later and childhood obesity may reach to epidemic levels in the next 10-20 years if capitalism in Turkey persists.
