As this editorial in my newspaper observes, the number of fatties has been rising alarmingly and continuously: as of 2013, there are 2.1 billion overweight-to-obese people in the world. Which means there are far more people around now who are in danger of dying of eating too much than those who are at risk of death from starvation or malnutrition. Says something about the kind of 'progress' we have been making over the last century, doesn't it? God bless science and all its marvels. How much longer before the Wall-E kind of syndrome becomes an everyday reality?
Likewise, in an age which fanatically worships youth and all its follies as never before in history, the proportion of elderly people is steadily getting bigger. If current trends continue, then by 2050 many countries will have far more people above 60 than below 20. And everything from government to economy to culture is all unprepared to handle such a never-before situation...
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1 comment:
Regarding your last point, that is what I usually tell people when they talk about India having a very young population. A very large young population means that about 50 years later, we are going to have a very large population of elderly people. In India's case, we neither have the infrastructure nor a system that is friendly towards elderly people as in most developed countries. The developed countries are also facing a huge problem because as you rightly mentioned, "everything from government to economy to culture is all unprepared to handle such a never-before situation..." I wonder what would happen to developing countries whose elderly population increases! Thanks for the thought provoking post.
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