For junk food which is what this mostly tracks, shrinkflation is good for people’s healths.
> celluloses, mono and diglycerides of fatty acids, modified starches, lecithins, carrageenans, phosphates, gums, and pectins. Some recent studies have indicated that emulsifiers can disturb gut bacteria and promote inflammation, potentially increasing susceptibility to cardiovascular issues.[0]
>In 2016, more than 1.9 billion adults, 18 years and older, were overweight. Of these over 650 million were obese.
>39% of adults aged 18 years and over were overweight in 2016, and 13% were obese.
https://www.who.int/news/item/06-07-2022-un-report--global-h...
>The number of people affected by hunger globally rose to as many as 828 million in 2021
I would bet the obesity numbers have greatly increased since 2016.
Price increases in healthy lentils, grains, nuts, fruits, vegetables, dairy, and healthier meats/poultry/fish is a concern for the global poor, but that is not what is talked about here.
> Around 2.3 billion people in the world (29.3%) were moderately or severely food insecure in 2021
It’s easy to talk on a forum like this, where the median salary is massive compared to global/country median, that poor people shouldn’t be able to afford as much bad food. I think when you do so you’ve lost touch with the average person who is affected by things like shrinkflation.
But generally, the people eating burgers in developed countries have a choice of eating healthier foods, and choose to eat burgers instead.
I don't believe though that this is inevitable, and I hope that the first world will continue to improve its situation, and that less well-equipped areas will somehow avoid making the mistakes and leapfrog these uncomfortable middle periods. We see this for instance with the Industrial Revolution, where those that can be credited with facilitating it generally did pretty poorly for themselves, but those who industrialised later were substantially better off.
They're a lot poorer now, and so they have less money to spend on healthy food. So not only are they destroying their health by smoking, they're stuck eating crappy food as well.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/434150/share-of-canadian...