“The Health of Nations” raised many points surrounding health and society overall that I have never thought about before which I found to be really enlightening and shocking. It made me so uncomfortable to read about how there is enough grain in the world for every human to consume 3,600 calories each day. With that being said, this food is unequally distributed throughout the world resulting in large imbalances of food availability and consumption from country to country (16). This creates an idea that first world countries may need to consume less, which is not a realistic possibility for them, thus perpetuating the issue of world hunger.
As prevalent as we see hunger and poverty in society, the notion that is developed in the article claims that poor people make “inappropriate decisions about what to consume” because of our consumer society that encourages individuals to want and strive to obtain more material possessions rather than goods they may actually need for survival (17). In our world, we see that material goods often get ranked above basic needs because material objects are presumed to create happiness for people.
On page 32 it states, “We conclude that having sufficient purchasing power to afford the basic needs of survival is an indispensable ingredient for the attainment of happiness.” There is a controversy in whether or not basic needs or materials create happiness. Later in the reading, the author describes this ideology as people’s happiness being relative to others around them an actually having nothing to do with their own physical possessions. The author introduces this idea of relativity and the “relative income hypothesis” that gives individuals perspective of where they are placed socially in the world in comparison to their other members of society; presumably saying that our happiness, income and health are all based on those around us.
- How much/often do you feel that other people’s lifestyles and happiness affect your own happiness? If at all?
- Would the “less is more” ideology regarding income create a significant change in health and society if it is reformed?
- How can we work to create better and equal distribution of products, resources and overall welfare?
poverty and society 