英国卫报：垃圾食品盛行 我们如何吃得更健康?(6)

It is hardly surprising that English food policy to date has seemed muddled¹, given that responsibility for it is spread across no fewer than 16 separate government departments.

鉴于英国食品政策的责任分散在不少于16个独立的政府部门，迄今为止英国的食品政策似乎是一片混乱的，这并不令人惊讶。

As well as the obvious candidates such as the Department of Health, the Department of Education and Defra, there are more surprising departments such as the Department of Justice (prison food) and Digital Culture, Media and Sport (food sponsorship and advertising²).

除了卫生部、教育部和Defra等明显的候选部门外，还有一些更令人惊讶的部门，如司法部（监狱食品）和数字文化、媒体和体育（食品赞助和广告）。

In 2020, Kelly Parsons, a food policy researcher at the University of Hertfordshire, produced a report identifying which government departments are responsible for which aspects of food policy in England.

2020年，赫特福德大学的食品政策研究员凯利-帕森斯(Kelly Parsons)编写了一份报告，确定哪些政府部门负责英格兰食品政策的哪些方面。

The meticulous³ research process confirmed Parsonss hunch⁴ that there is no single place to go to find out about food-related policy, either for those inside or outside government.

这一缜密的研究过程证实了帕森斯的预感：无论是政府内部还是外部，都没有一个地方可以了解与食品有关的政策。

Parsons told me that after she published her map of the different groups and departments a number of people in Whitehall told her how useful it was, because they had been just as much in the dark about food policy as the rest of us.

帕森斯告诉我，在她公布了不同团体和部门的架构图后，白厅的一些人告诉她这非常有价值，因为他们和我们其他人一样，对食品政策一无所知。

Given the poor state of the average British diet the Food Foundation found in 2021 that almost a third of British children aged⁵ between five and 10 eat fewer than one portion of vegetables a day it would be easy to assume that Britain must have a poor nutrition policy.

鉴于英国人的平均饮食状况不佳，食品基金会在2021年发现，几乎三分之一的5至10岁的英国儿童每天吃蔬菜不超过一份，所以很容易推断英国一定有一个糟糕的营养政策。

But the problem is actually deeper and more nebulous than this.

但问题实际上比这更深、更模糊。

Britain doesn't actually have a single nutrition policy at all, just a series of different policies on food, often contradictory⁶ ones, emerging from different departments at different times.

英国实际上根本没有单一的营养政策，只有一系列不同的食品政策，它们之间往往是相互矛盾的，在不同时间由不同部门制定。

Not only do these departments fail to coordinate⁷ their actions on food, but they may have directly opposing agendas.

这些部门不仅没有统筹安排他们在食品方面的行动，而且他们可能有直接反对意见相左的议程。

Current agricultural policy in the UK subsidises sugar and red meat, even though dietary advice from the Department of Health recommends eating less of them.

英国目前的农业政策对糖和红肉进行补贴，尽管卫生部的饮食建议是少吃这些食物。

Earlier this year, Parsons set out to identify some of the key disconnects in food policy in England, based on interviews with senior officials in key departments in Westminster.

今年早些时候，帕森斯根据对威斯敏斯特主要部门高级官员的采访，着手确定英格兰食品政策中的一些关键脱节问题。

One of the biggest contradictions was that different departments have different client groups to please.

最大的矛盾之一是，不同的部门有不同的客户群体需要取悦。

Health officials may wish to restrict junk food being marketed to children, but their counterparts in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport are more interested in protecting the profits of the advertising industry.

卫生官员可能希望限制向儿童推销垃圾食品，但数字、文化、媒体和体育部门的官员却对保护广告业的利润兴趣更大。

When you have (an agriculture) minister who says, Im going to be judged on whether I keep the farmers happy, and a minister of health who has a completely different set of interests, its difficult to see how they would work together, said one of Parsonss interviewees.

帕森斯的一位受访者说："当你有一个（农业）部长认为，我将根据农民的利益来判断，而一个卫生部长则有一套完全不同的利益判断标准，那他们就很难合作了。

The client who tends to get forgotten in all this is the ordinary person simply trying to feed themselves and their family as well as they can on a stretched budget.

在这一切算计中，往往被遗忘的客户是广大的普通人，他们只是想在紧张的预算下竭尽全力养活好自己和家人。

Another of the disconnects Parsons identified was between nutrition, obesity⁸ and income.

帕森斯发现的另一个问题是营养、肥胖和收入之间的脱节。

Through the Department of Health, the government hands out advice on what to eat (through the much-criticised Eatwell guide), but there is no attempt to cross-reference this with policy on welfare and on food access specifically, peoples ability to afford the food being recommended for healthy weight.

政府通过卫生部门提供了关于吃什么的建议（通过备受批评的Eatwell指南），但并没有试图将其与福利政策和食物选择政策交叉参考，特别是人们为达到健康体重所推荐的食物价格。

This clash of departments partly explains why so many obesity policies focus on physical activity as the solution, rather than reforming the food supply.

这种部门间的利益冲突部分地解释了为什么如此多的肥胖症政策将体育活动作为解决方案，而非针对食品供应改革。

1 muddled   

adj.混乱的；糊涂的；头脑昏昏然的v.弄乱，弄糟( muddle的过去式)；使糊涂；对付，混日子

参考例句：

• He gets muddled when the teacher starts shouting. 老师一喊叫他就心烦意乱。
• I got muddled up and took the wrong turning. 我稀里糊涂地拐错了弯。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 advertising   

n.广告业；广告活动 a.广告的；广告业务的

参考例句：

• Can you give me any advice on getting into advertising? 你能指点我如何涉足广告业吗?
• The advertising campaign is aimed primarily at young people. 这个广告宣传运动主要是针对年轻人的。

3 meticulous   

adj.极其仔细的，一丝不苟的

参考例句：

• We'll have to handle the matter with meticulous care.这事一点不能含糊。
• She is meticulous in her presentation of facts.她介绍事实十分详细。

4 hunch   

n.预感，直觉

参考例句：

• I have a hunch that he didn't really want to go.我有这么一种感觉，他并不真正想去。
• I had a hunch that Susan and I would work well together.我有预感和苏珊共事会很融洽。

5 aged   

adj.年老的，陈年的

参考例句：

• He had put on weight and aged a little.他胖了，也老点了。
• He is aged,but his memory is still good.他已年老，然而记忆力还好。

6 contradictory   

adj.反驳的，反对的，抗辩的；n.正反对，矛盾对立

参考例句：

• The argument is internally contradictory.论据本身自相矛盾。
• What he said was self-contradictory.他讲话前后不符。

7 coordinate   

adj.同等的，协调的；n.同等者；vt.协作，协调

参考例句：

• You must coordinate what you said with what you did.你必须使你的言行一致。
• Maybe we can coordinate the relation of them.或许我们可以调和他们之间的关系。

8 obesity   

n.肥胖，肥大

参考例句：

• One effect of overeating may be obesity.吃得过多能导致肥胖。
• Sugar and fat can more easily lead to obesity than some other foods.糖和脂肪比其他食物更容易导致肥胖。