英国卫报：垃圾食品盛行 我们如何吃得更健康?(2)（在线收听）

British politicians, as a rule, have shown little interest in tackling the problem of poor-quality food and its relationship to health.

英国的政治家们，一般说来，对解决劣质食品问题及其与居民健康的关系没有太大兴趣。

These policy failures go back to the 19th century.

这些政策上的失败可以追溯到19世纪。

Our early Industrial Revolution meant that a larger percentage of the population lost its connection with agriculture at an earlier stage than in any other country.

我们早期的工业革命意味着有更大比例的人口很早就失去了与农业的联系，这比任何其他国家都早。

When it comes to food policy, there has long been an attitude of leave it to the market (the shining exception being the two world wars, when the constraints of rationing forced governments to join the dots on food and health).

说到食品政策，长期以来人们都想把它交给市场来决定（两次世界大战是明显的例外，当时配给制的限制迫使政府将食品和健康联系在一起）。

Campaigners against the grossly adulterated food supply in Victorian times sometimes complained that the selling of food in London operated on buyer beware principles, which meant that grocers were free to sell poisonous pickles and fake coffee to an unsuspecting public without fear of retribution.

维多利亚时代反对食品供应掺假的运动者有时会抱怨说，伦敦的食品销售按照 "买者自负 "的原则运作，这意味着杂货商可以自由地向毫无戒心的公众出售有毒的咸菜和假咖啡而不必担心报复。

Not much has changed, except that instead of poisonous pickles, we are sold a surfeit of ultra-processed food.

现在和当时变化并不大，只是我们卖的不再是有毒的腌菜，而是大量的超加工食品。

Recent English obesity policies have spoken endlessly of action to help people eat healthier diets, but what they deliver, often as not, is another raft of patronising diet information leaflets, such as the bright yellow Change4Life diet pamphlets handed out in schools and GP surgeries.

最近英国的肥胖政策不停谈论帮助人们吃更健康的饮食行动，但他们提供的往往是另一种替代性食物的信息传单，如在学校和全科医生手术室分发的亮黄色封面的Change4Life饮食小册子。

(One uninspiring gem: If you're shopping for packaged snacks for your children, try sticking to 100 calorie snacks.)

(一个不那么令人愉快的诀窍：如果你要给孩子买包装零食，试着坚持选购能量接近100卡路里的零食）。

For three decades, Theis and White found, successive governments have repeatedly proposed similar or identical policies and then not done anything to see them through.

西斯和怀特发现，三十年来，历届政府反复提出类似甚至相同的政策，却没有采取任何行动来贯彻这些政策。

What counts as an obesity policy could be anything from a plan of action to a statement of intent.

肥胖症政策可以是任何东西，从行动计划到意向声明。

Whichever party has been in charge, the most popular policies have been ones placing high demands on individuals to make personal changes (such as the 5 a day campaign) rather than meaningful reforms such as restricting the sale of unhealthy foods, or subsidising fruits and vegetables to make them more affordable.

无论哪个政党执政，最受民众欢迎的肥胖政策都对个人提出了很高的要求，要求他们做出个人改变（比如每天5个小时的运动），而不是进行有意义的改革，比如限制不健康食品的销售，或者对水果和蔬菜进行补贴，使其价格更低。

Most of the ideas for structural interventions for example, that the food industry should reformulate its unhealthiest products were voluntary.

大多数结构性干预的想法，例如，食品工业应该调整其最不健康的产品配方，都是一厢情愿的说法。

Unsurprisingly, compliance was not high.

不足为奇的是，服从率并不高。

One of the few exceptions has been the Soft Drinks Industry Levy (AKA Sugar Tax) of 2018, which resulted in a 30g a week drop in household sugar consumption, but I suspect that this will turn out to be a pyrrhic victory given evidence that consuming aspartame, the artificial sweetener used in many diet drinks, also causes weight gain as well as possibly altering the gut microbiome.

为数不多的例外之一是2018年的软饮料行业征税（又称糖税），这导致家庭每周糖消费量下降30克，但我怀疑这将是一个付出过高代价的微小胜利，因为有证据表明，食用阿斯巴甜（许多减肥饮料中使用的人工甜味剂）也会导致体重增加，并可能改变肠道微生物组。