Incentivisation, Addiction, Prevention


Robert Verkerk, PhD, the executive and scientific director of the Alliance for Natural Health International pointed to World Health Organization (WHO) platform advocating nutritional solutions to the obesity - diabetes problem that few governments had adequately heeded. “To date most governments have paid little more than lip service to the idea,” he said. “The problem is incentive, both from the perspective of the consumer, as well as from the food industry and health profession. The typical consumer has in some ways become an addict, and to get them to transition between less healthy diets and lifestyles to more healthy ones, requires more than just pointing out the direction they should move in”. "The medical profession has no experience of real prevention. The model is still based on people only responding once they have entered a dysfunctional state. This is just too late to be either efficient or sustainable. The education given to doctors on nutrition and lifestyle mediated healthcare is negligible, and even that given to dietitians is greatly limited. "We need to see a revolution in healthcare education, where healthcare, in the true sense of the word (not to be confused with disease management), is something that is proactively handled in the home, at work, at schools, at universities and through all branches of the healthcare professions. This takes time, but it’s better to start, than never to begin”.