Is international trade causing obesity in developing countries? (PDF)

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2014 in the subject Economics - Foreign Trade Theory, Trade Policy, grade: A, , course: Economics, international trade, obesity, corruption, developing countries, global south, nestle, Pacific Island Nations, language: English, abstract: This research paper was written as my final honors thesis in economics. I was questioning the somewhat sudden high rates of obesity found in many developing countries today. I found several reasons for why obesity has sky rocketed in the global south, finding that most trends leading to obesity derived from the western lifestyle.

One significant change between the western world and the developing world is that for the global south the transition to industrialization and development happened at a much faster pace. The sudden modernization has in many places led to extreme changes in behavior and lifestyle. The one trend that reoccured in most developing countries and had the highest effect on obesity rates was the infiltration of food products, mostly from western food corporations. I look at some specific practices made by companies like Nestle and others, as well as looking at behavioral changes in some of the worst hit areas like the Pacific Island nations.