a healthy diet handed down for millennia in just 30 years has been thrown out

A report published recently in the New York Times has highlighted the drastic eating habits changes that have occurred all over Greece and which have led to huge increases in obesity and obesity related illness. The number of people going to doctors clinics suffering from high blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease has increased hugely over the last 30 years especially in small rural towns and villages which had previously subsisted on a very healthy Mediterranean diet.

With the onset of globalisation, fish, fresh dairy products and olive oil are now being replaced with a fast food restaurants, unhealthy pizza and very high calorie sweet drinks. Even more worrying is that children are being affected most by the diet changes and are shunning the traditional healthy Greek diet even more than their parents are.

The Greek people are the most overweight in Europe with 75 percent of the population being overweight or obese according to United Nations figures. While all Mediterranean nations have suffered from the influence of processed and fast food it appears that the Greeks have been the worst affected. Older Greek people talk about how their diet is completely different to the diet of the children and grandchildren and that while they tried to instil good eating habits and make them eat healthily it is difficult when there are so many advertisements for very cheap and unhealthy food everywhere.

The fact that many women work these days means that they have less time to prepare food and go to the market to get a fish for example and thus they rely on takeaways and processed food more often. This type of food has higher levels of fat, cholesterol and calories. The consumption of vegetables and fruit is also down considerably over the last 30 years all over the Mediterranean.

It is a sad fact of life that a healthy diet handed down for millennia in the Mediterranean region has in the space of 30 years been thrown out and replaced with an unhealthy diet which will see rates of longevity in Greece plummet in the future.