U.S. agricultural policy: Promoting child obesity and the nutrition transition here and abroad?

Ever-strengthening evidence links U.S. agriculture and trade policies to a dysfunctional food system that contributes to obesity and other diet-related chronic disease, both domestically and abroad. Since the mid-1970s, U.S. agricultural policy has been focused not on health, but rather on promoting yield and industrialized production of a few commodity crops -- including corn and soybeans, as well as meat -- in ways that are intensive in use of fossil fuels, antibiotics and other inputs. The presentation demonstrates how these policies may have contributed to an obesogenic food environment, where corn and soy-derived calories are inexpensive, super-abundant and overconsumed by Americans, but also exported to developing nations, where they can contribute to the "nutritional transition" towards overconsumption of saturated fats, refined grains and calorie-dense, nutrient-poor junk foods. In addition, by undercutting the livelihood of farmers in these countries, U.S. agricultural policy promotes their dislocation and migration to the U.S., also impacting public health in myriad ways.