Healthy Foods can be too Costly

A study has found that healthy food is not so affordable, as the prices of fruit and vegetables are fast increasing.

The five-year study in Queensland, which is likely to reflect national trends, found that while snacks and confectionery increased in price by about 31 percent, the price of fruit soared by more than 112 per cent.

Overall, fresh produce and other healthy foods increased in price by 50 per cent between 2000 and 2006, well above the 32.5 per cent inflation rate for food in general.

The research follows a report in the Herald last week, on obesity overtaking tobacco as the leading cause of illness and premature death for the first time, and Australia was unprepared for the huge number of health problems, this will cause.

The head of the school of exercise and nutrition sciences at Deakin University, David Crawford, said there was an urgent need for healthy food to be more available and for the issue to be put on the political agenda.

Professor Crawford said the recommendations of the National Preventative Health Task Force, released last year, were the best effort in 20 years to promote healthy eating and prevent disease.

The taskforce recommended the government consider extra taxation of unhealthy food in Australia, and introduce formal strategies to address price, choice and access to healthy food.

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The government has been criticised by public health groups for failing to respond to the report.

Amanda Lee, a professor in the University of Queensland's faculty of health who is the author of the study, called for a new national inflation index to consider only healthy food rather than "just commonly purchased food, [which] would help to provide a truer picture of cost increases and the broader health and economic implications".

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Dr Lee said it was difficult to identify why the cost of healthy food was increasing at a greater rate than other food.

"When the GST was introduced, some healthy foods were exempt [but] the greatest increases in costs of healthy food occurred in that year," the Sydney Morning Herald quoted her as saying.

The associate dean of Flinders University's discipline of public health, John Coveney, said recent research had shown people on low incomes were more likely to buy healthy food if it was cheaper.

"Politicians should be making brave decisions based on the evidence that we have, and if we want people to eat healthy foods we are going to have to do something about the cost," Dr Coveney said.

"Unfortunately I don't think we are in a political climate where it is easy to put a tax on unhealthy foods or subsidise healthy foods," he added.

The study has been published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health. (ANI)

|Mindy McCready sex tape not being released |Entertainment[Washington{Washington, April 13 (ANI): Country star Mindy McCready has revealed that her sex tape is not being released.

Vivid Entertainment had a sex tape called 'Baseball Mistress' lined up and ready to hit the adult video store shelves.

It allegedly featured McCready and a boyfriend named "Peter," and also included an interview where she apparently dished on her past with several celebrities, including baseball player Roger Clemens and country star Alan Jackson.

"I had no idea. I woke up one morning and turned on the computer and it was all over the place, so that's exactly how I found out," Fox News quoted McCready as saying.

"I have a child and he will grow up and Google one day. So I definitely don't want that kind of stuff on the Internet," she said.

McCready said that she contacted her lawyer, and that they have been able to persuade the porn distributor to delay and perhaps even stop its release.

"My attorney is amazing. It is not being released, and it has been pulled completely from the Net. [Vivid] has actually been pretty cool about not making a big deal about pulling it off. They were respectful of that, so that's good," McCready said.

Source-ANI
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