Unhealthy Food Access and Choice Ethics Essay

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Actions aimed at improving the quality of life in various populations are inextricably connected with the principles of ethics. Being based on people’s intuitive sense of right and wrong, such principles can be regarded as essential regulators of social processes. In terms of matter, they often help to strike the right balance between utility considerations and people’s feelings. The question of ethics is thrown into sharp relief when it comes to the activity of companies in the food industry and their attitude to providing end-customers with an opportunity to choose unhealthy food that causes numerous health issues (Knadig & Tomlinson, 2017). The paper argues that restricting access to unhealthy food is more appropriate for the food industry from the moral point of view.

At first thought, it can be extremely difficult to define which line of conduct is more appropriate based on ethical principles: providing less junk food to promote healthier alternatives or giving consumers the right to make food choices on their own. Many people in this business claim that food producers are not obliged to promote the consumption of healthier products. Thus, individuals belonging to this group protect an idea of the so-called “shared responsibility” in the food industry. In agreement with the mentioned idea, both food producers and consumers should be responsible for the outcomes, and it is the task of consumers to take into account their health issues and needs when choosing alimentary products (Knadig & Tomlinson, 2017).

On the one hand, the idea of offering enough unhealthy food indicates that consumers have a free will and, to some extent, it makes the industry more customer-oriented. On the other hand, the habit of eating junk food when there are enough healthier alternatives is comparable with other pernicious habits that are not welcomed by the government. It is known that consuming different types of unhealthy food is closely associated with food addiction (Oginsky, Goforth, Nobile, Lopez-Santiago, & Ferrario, 2016). Therefore, the list of negative outcomes of unhealthy nutrition is enormous; it includes obesity, joint problems, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and gastrointestinal disease. More than that, unhealthy nutrition can even contribute to the development of cancer, and many individuals from different countries fall victim to their unhealthy habits.

The availability of junk food makes unhealthy lifestyle choices more common and contributes to their normalization. It is obvious that moral appropriateness of certain actions and policies is defined based on their ability to bring benefits to the majority of people. With that in mind, increased access to unhealthy food can pose a threat to the individuals who are trying to fight their food addiction. Considering that unhealthy eating has extremely dangerous consequences, it is possible to state that satisfying the demand for such food is similar to satisfying the demand for tobacco products, alcoholic beverages, and illicit drugs. Therefore, restricting the amounts of unhealthy food available is more appropriate from the moral point of view because it helps to prevent many cases of food addiction and, therefore, make nations healthier. However, one should realize that it can be a difficult decision for many companies in the industry because selling addictive unhealthy foods is a formula for their financial success.

To sum it up, the food industry should try to protect its consumers by making unhealthy food less available. Promoting healthy eating, food producers contribute to the health of different nations. It is important that companies in the food industry are capable of preventing many cases of food addiction by restricting the amount of unhealthy food that is available and advertised everywhere. The value of health can be regarded as the key argument in the discussion.

References

Knadig, T. M., & Tomlinson, S. J. (2017). Health care ethics and the law. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Publishers.

Oginsky, M. F., Goforth, P. B., Nobile, C. W., Lopez-Santiago, L. F., & Ferrario, C. R. (2016). Eating ‘junk-food’ produces rapid and long-lasting increases in NAc CP-AMPA receptors: Implications for enhanced cue-induced motivation and food addiction. Neuropsychopharmacology, 41(13), 2977.

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