VOA慢速英語: 西方的飲食習(xí)慣對身體健康、對環(huán)境不利

Western Diet Bad for Human Health, Environment
西方飲食對身體健康、對環(huán)境不利
From VOA Learning English, this is the Health Report.
這里是美國之音慢速英語的健康報道。
The spread of Western eating habits around the world is bad for human health and for the environment. Those findings come from a new report in the journal Nature.
世界風(fēng)靡的西方飲食習(xí)慣對人身體健康、對環(huán)境不利。這些發(fā)現(xiàn)源自于一本《自然》雜志的最新報道。
There are ways to solve this diet-health-environment problem. But they will require a change in eating habits. And what we eat can be a product of culture, personal taste, price and ease.
有一些方法能夠解決這個飲食——健康——環(huán)境的問題。但是人們需要改變飲食習(xí)慣。我們吃的東西是一種文化、個人的品味、一種價格和放松方式的產(chǎn)物。
David Tilman is a professor of ecology at the University of Minnesota. In the study, he examined information from 100 countries to identify what people ate and how diet affected health.
大衛(wèi)·蒂爾曼是明尼蘇達大學(xué)生態(tài)學(xué)的教授。在研究中，他考察了來自100個國家的人的飲食習(xí)慣，以及飲食如何影響他們的健康。
Mr. Tilman noted a movement beginning in the 1960s. He found that as nations industrialized, population increased and earnings rose. More people began to adopt what has been called the Western diet.
蒂爾曼指出20世紀(jì)60年代就開始一項運動。他發(fā)現(xiàn)隨著工業(yè)化程度加深、人口增長和收入增加。越來越多的人開始采用西方的飲食方式。
The Western diet is high in refined, or processed, sugar, fat, oil and meat. By eating these foods, people began to get fatter -- and sicker.
西方的飲食中富含精煉物或者加工的糖、脂肪、油和肉。吃這些食物，人們開始變胖，更容易生病。
“The excess, let us say, in the 15 richest nations of the world, right now is on the order of about 400 or 500 extra calories a day that are eaten beyond what people need, and that leads people to gain weight.”
“世界上最富有的15個國家，每天過度攝入400或500卡路里，遠遠超過人體所需，這就會導(dǎo)致人們變胖。”
David Tillman says overweight people are at greater risk for non-infectious diseases like diabetes, heart disease and some cancers.
大衛(wèi)·提爾曼認(rèn)為過度肥胖的人群很容易得糖尿病、心臟病和一些癌癥等非感染性疾病。
“Diabetes is shooting to very high rates in the United States and across Europe. Heart disease is a major cause of mortality in the Western countries. Unfortunately when people become industrialized, if they adopt this Western diet, they are going to have these same health impacts, and in some cases if you are Asian, you have them more severely than even happens in the West.”
“糖尿病在美國和歐洲各國都有很高發(fā)病率。在西方國家心臟病是引發(fā)死亡率的主要原因。遺憾的是，隨著工業(yè)化進程的發(fā)展，如果人們繼續(xù)沿用這種西方人的飲食習(xí)慣，他們會面對相同的健康問題；假如你是亞洲人，那采用西方飲食習(xí)慣產(chǎn)生的問題比西方國家的問題更嚴(yán)重。”
China, he says, is an example where the number of diabetes cases has jumped.
他說中國就是糖尿病人數(shù)跳躍式增長的一個例子。
“... from less than one percent to 10 percent of the population having diabetes as they began to industrialize over a 20-year period. And that has not leveled off yet. That is still going up. And that is happening all across the world, in Mexico, in Nigeria and so on, just nation after nation.”
“過去20多年里，隨著工業(yè)化的發(fā)展，患糖尿病的人數(shù)所占比例從不到1%到10%。而且這個增長比例還沒有趨向平穩(wěn)?；疾∪藬?shù)在繼續(xù)上升。全球都存在這種情況，墨西哥、尼日利亞、等一個接著一個國家陸續(xù)出現(xiàn)類似問題。”
And, a diet bad for human beings, it seems, is also bad for the environment. As the world’s population grows, experts say more forests and tropical areas will become farmland for crops or grasslands for grazing cattle. These areas will be needed to meet the increasing demand for food.
一種飲食習(xí)慣對人體健康有害，而且對環(huán)境也有害。隨著世界人口的增長，專家稱越來越多的森林和熱帶地區(qū)會變成農(nóng)田，用來種植農(nóng)田或者變成草場用來畜牧。這些土地需要用來滿足人口增長對食物的需求。
“We are likely to have more greenhouse gas released in the future from agriculture because of this dietary shift than all the greenhouse gas that right now comes out of all the cars, and all of the airplanes, boats and ships, all forms of transportation. So our change in diet is likely to be worse for the world for climate warming than all the transportation sources we use right now.”
“因為飲食的變化，未來農(nóng)業(yè)有可能會釋放更多的溫室氣體；而如今的溫室氣體來自汽車尾氣、飛機、各類船只等各種交通運輸工具的尾氣。因此，飲食習(xí)慣的變化對全球來說更糟糕。由于現(xiàn)在交通工具使用導(dǎo)致的全球變暖會更加嚴(yán)重。”
Mr. Tilman calls the link between diet, the environment and human health, “a trilemma.” This is a play on the word “dilemma” -- a problem offering a difficult choice. He says one possible solution is leaving the Western diet behind.
提爾曼把飲食、環(huán)境和人類健康之間的練習(xí)稱為“三元悖論”。這是對“進退維谷”這個詞的進一步擴展。“進退維谷”是指一個很艱難的選擇。他說一種可行的解決辦法是把西方的飲食習(xí)慣丟在一邊。
I’m Anna Matteo.
我是安娜·馬特奧。
VOA’s Rosanne Skirble reported this story from Washington, D.C. Anna Matteo wrote it for VOA Learning English. George Grow was the editor.
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Words in This Story
graze ­– v. (of cattle, sheep, etc...) eat grass in a field
dilemma – n. a situation in which you have to make a difficult choice