Alimentación salud y cultura - SANHISO C. International health and ...

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Diversos autores
etables) (Zweiniger-Bargielowska, 2000). Because of the restrictive
nature of rationing and the unavailability of many foodstuffs for the
average Briton, people mainly subsisted on staples of potatoes, bread
and vegetables, with items such as meat, sugar and many types of fruit
rarely available and prized as luxury items. In a publication on food
control during the preceding war years the Ministry of Food stated
that;
Since 1940 Britain has suffered a shortage of nearly all the more
appetising and popular staple foods. Meat, fish, butter, eggs and sugar
have been scarce... People have been compelled to satisfy their physical
needs by filling up with larger quantities of the bulky and less attractive
vegetable and cereal foodstuffs still obtainable. (Ministry of Food, 1946)
The introduction of intensive farming methods in the 1950s resulted
in a plentiful market and so food prices were driven down.
The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) was created after the establishment
of the Common Market and was intended to create a single
agricultural policy which would be adhered to by a collective
of European countries. Its main purpose was to enable countries to
increase production and export which had dropped so dramatically
as a result of the World Wars (Fennell, 1997). Food shortages quickly
ended after the implementation of the CAP and were followed by a
profusion of foods which had not been experienced since the early
Edwardian period.
In 2004 Davey conducted research into obesity in Britain and his
findings showed that British manufacturing, marketing and consumption
habits had evolved in a similar way to those in the USA. An analysis
of market place products showed that commercial portion sizes
had increased, with the introduction of ‘Super Size’ chocolate bars
and ‘Big Eat’ packets of crisps encouraging over-consumption among
the population (Davey, 2004). Davey refers to the British eating environment
as ‘toxic’ because of this promotion of over-consumption,
which echoes with the work conducted by Rozin et alii (2003) in
relation to the eating environment in the USA.
The only comprehensive analysis to date of changes in food portion
sizes in Britain over the past 20 years was conducted by Wrieden
et al in 2008. They found that changes to food portion sizes in Britain