On the right to health and physical shape

Ten million thousand years ago, some chimpanzee found himself in the need to stand on his own feet, just so he could have a small chance of surviving to the possible predators around. This event gave the start to the human empire, the powerful, the strong, the smart species that would rule the earth until the present day.

Since that event, the human body has been adapting itself so that the species would live for longer. The chimpanzees would later have replaced their bone structure for a more functional design, they got longer legs, they got less hair etc. The body always worked for us so that we could survive more easily.

Nowadays, however, it feels like it’s been the society that has worked for us to survive easily, which might sound good, but which is in the long run, only making people weak. Hamburgers are cheap, and healthy, organic meat is unaffordable. In the supermarkets, people have to search to get access to“good products” and the fruit and vegetables sections offer more fertilisers than nutrients.

Most people are surrounded by fast food services that not only are damaging for our health, but for the planet as well. Some other people do not have the money to buy food, irrespective of the quality. And what seems surprising, is how little people have a nice, balanced nutrition. The way “healthy” equals expensive, the way “healthy” means rich.

We live in a system where money is the key to every door, every opportunity, but what happens when you can’t afford to turn the lock? When we think about starvation, we tend to imagine skeletal bodies with falling hair, pale skins, lack of sleep, and we forget about the kind of starvation that is taking place all over the most developed cities, the ones that don’t need to look like a skeleton to have a lack of nutrients. We forget how having more fat than our bodies are meant to deal with is also starvation. We forget that not being able to get out of bed, go for a walk or pick up the ringing phone in the next room is also starvation. Nowadays, overeating means starvation, because overeating on healthy food is unaffordable for all those who don’t own a portion.

I find it perplexing how this illusion of “we’ve got everything we want” is actually taking us away from basic rights like the right to health and (good quality) food (arts. 24 and 27 of the Convention on the Rights of the child). Despite having fast food restaurants and snack services at every corner they seem to care little about our health, and I feel like people are forgetting that that is what truly matters.

Capitalism, excess of dopamine, lack of education about nutrition and sport (more than physical education in school) are to blame for this. In schools, kids don’t receive much education about themselves, we are taught an antiquated nutrition pyramid that has bread for base instead of sleep, sport and water. We are told that fats are bad but when our grannies give us two euros to go buy whatever a bar of chocolate is all we can afford.

We are taught to make the right decisions, but making the right decisions is hard when you’ve got an apple and a haribo gummy bear bag, and the gummy bear bag features a drawing of a child, smiling, happy, saying that they are the best. Still, the apple seems big, it looks delicious and sweet. It looks very clean having been taken from a tree. It looks like plastic.

So, when that little child wants to buy something, he’ll buy what seems fun, plus it’s less expensive.

We all want that health, we all want to be that girl on instagram eating an avocado toast in her beautiful kitchen, but we cannot be her, because she herself has struggled to buy bread too.