Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-01-31-Speech-3-192"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20070131.22.3-192"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should firstly very much like to pay tribute to the work of our fellow Member, and I particularly support her proposals on prevention and on education, as well as on physical education of course. These proposals also emphasise the important role of school canteens, which must offer children and adolescents a balanced diet involving healthy produce.
Whenever they have been implemented in our countries, these measures have produced satisfactory results, and several studies indicate that such programmes, designed as they are to prevent obesity and to promote healthy eating, have made it possible to stabilise the obesity rate among overweight young people - a rate that, overall, is otherwise constantly increasing. The figures were pointed out just now. That is what leads me to say that we really must urge the Commission to bring such programmes into much more widespread use.
That being said, I think it necessary to point out that, confronted by this growing public health problem, we must also turn our attention to its underlying causes. The link between obesity and the social environment has been proved many times, the main reason for the link being the cost of food. A French daily newspaper published an article today entitled ‘The rich are slim’.
If obesity is mainly connected with the excessive consumption of sugar and fat, with fruit and vegetables eaten in correspondingly fewer quantities, it is certainly because of the cost of the latter. Moreover, it is hard to see how, in this respect, things might improve in the future, as it is well known that the overhauled common agricultural policy will lead to sugar, and even fat, being placed on the market at 25% of previous prices – a development that would lead to their wider use in products made by the food processing industry – while the prices of fruit and vegetables will continue to rise, leaving them still far beyond the reach of the poorest people.
That is why it would be helpful if European Union food policy could complement health policy, with foodstuffs made accessible to everyone and their prices kept down. Nor should the impact of socio-economic policy be ignored, as the choice of food tends to be determined by households’ purchasing power. While waiting, however, for our policies to be revised, we must lose no time in using our food aid programme to ensure that fruit and vegetables can be supplied to those who need them."@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples