Note that their diets are poor, by choice. They are making bad choices, which they're not being forced into. Not by money shortage, at least. You can say education, but I'm willing to bet that these people were in fact instructed in balanced diets (in high school, not at a very high level, but still).
Of course, this is the perfect illustration of how you'd expect natural evolution to respond to lack of evolutionary pressure on something. If you "solve" the hunger problem, thereby eliminating dietary evolutionary pressure, people will no longer worry about it at all, leading to "dumb problems", like this one. If we solve this problem, by, say, forcing every food to contain vitamin K, C, D and things like Iron, evolution will find new problems.
>>Note that their diets are poor, by choice. They are making bad choices, which they're not being forced into. Not by money shortage, at least. You can say education, but I'm willing to bet that these people were in fact instructed in balanced diets (in high school, not at a very high level, but still).
Anecdotal time: This is going to make me look like a fool, but I'll tell this story anyway. I sorta knew hamburgers and fast-food were bad for you, but it wasn't until after I earned my BS CompSci that I realized just how bad. And I only realized it because of a game called Dance Dance Revolution. As you can see in my youtube channel on my HN profile, I was kinda hardcore about that game. One day, I didn't have time to eat my usual meal containing mostly rice. I went to BurgerKing and got a Double Whopper with cheese and fries. Ate all of it, waiting about 1 hr, then went to the arcade to play. I ran out of energy so fast I couldn't believe it and my day was ruined. After that I went home and did research on what athletes eat & general balanced diet for energy.... then I saw Food Inc. That was how I learned what to eat and is the only reason I'm not 300lbs+ today.
School does not stress these points nearly enough. In fact, I had this discussion with co-workers less than a month ago. We concluded that American schools purposely avoid effectively teaching 3 things so that most will fall into the trap of the credit-debt, junkfood & diet fads and easy manipulation by the media.
1. Finances
2. Health & Fitness
3. Critical Thinking
Of course, this is the perfect illustration of how you'd expect natural evolution to respond to lack of evolutionary pressure on something. If you "solve" the hunger problem, thereby eliminating dietary evolutionary pressure, people will no longer worry about it at all, leading to "dumb problems", like this one. If we solve this problem, by, say, forcing every food to contain vitamin K, C, D and things like Iron, evolution will find new problems.