Cultural globalisation and health

The diffusion of disease around the world is not entirely a one-way process of transmission from South to North. Globalisation has also seen certain non-communicable ‘lifestyle illnesses’, associated with mass-consumption societies of the Global North, head southwards as people in LDCs adopt some of the unhealthy practices associated with modernisation. The consumption of high-fat and high-sugar foods, for example, has led to previously minor health problems such as obesity, heart disease and diabetes becoming more prominent in many LDCs and even in the societies on the margins of highly developed states. A rise in rates of obesity and diabetes amongst indigenous peoples of the Arctic has resulted from the nutrition transition to Western consumption patterns. The mechanisation of travel and decline in hunting in some communities has also added to the obesity problem as the Arctic lifestyle has become less active.  Diabetes claims as many lives in Asia as AIDS and is estimated to become the sixth leading case of all deaths by 2030. Tobacco smoking has become more common in a number of LDCs (encouraged by Northern MNCs faced with a declining market at home), leading to a rise in lung cancers. Native Alaskans are nearly nine times more likely to die of alcohol-related health problems than the average US citizen. Cancers were near non-existent in the Arctic until the last hundred years but lung, colon and breast cancers have soared due to social change. Overall, non-communicable diseases account for 63% of all deaths in the world (WHO 2008).