“Heroes Menu” was the name of the dubious campaign in March of last year: Burger King donated free meals for clinic employees in Germany.
Competitor McDonald's also distributed free food to the helpers in the United States.
Condition: upload a photo on social media.
Pictures with happy paramedics, nurses and orderlies with fast food bags followed.
Eating burgers and drinking coke became acts of solidarity.
Doing good and promoting your own products: Many companies came up with this idea in the pandemic year.
A survey by the NCD Alliance, an international association for combating widespread diseases, has now shown that fast food chains and manufacturers of alcohol and soft drinks in particular stand out around the world.
Photo: Richard B. Levine / imago images
In developing countries like Ghana or Myanmar, Anheuser-Busch and Heineken donated masks and protective material. In India, Pepsi procured and distributed 25,000 Covid tests. While there is a risk of malnutrition in many countries, Corinna Hawkes, Head of the Center for Food Policy at City University in London, sees the risk that people elsewhere will become increasingly fat - especially in Corona times. In the United States, Europe, Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East, a quarter of adults in polls said they had gained weight during the pandemic. Many stated that they found it difficult to control their eating behavior under stress. “People eat snacks more often,” Hawkes says. "You eat more."
The Germans are also getting heavier.
According to the Robert Koch Institute, the average weight between April and August 2020 was 78.2 kilos - a good one kilo more than in the same period of the previous year, and that was before the winter lockdown.
Experts fear that this will increase the risk of obesity and thus diabetes or high blood pressure for children and adults alike.
"We now have a window to act," says Hawkes.
There are many ideas: taxes on sugary drinks, rules for healthier eating in schools, for food donations.
And less junk food advertising.
Heartily
Your Kerstin Kullmann
(
Feedback & suggestions?
)
Abstract
My reading recommendations this week:
The US does not want to
hold
on to
patent protection for Covid-19 vaccines
.
My colleagues Marian Blasberg and Marco Evers ask whether that's enough to win the fight against the pandemic
In the
Amazon in Brazil
, scientists are already looking for the next virus that could trigger a pandemic
My colleague Julia Köppe researched
why corona calculations are
better than their reputation
A graduate student at the University of San Diego has figured out how pelicans manage
to glide
elegantly over the crests
of waves
Quiz*
1. What does the »FFP« stand for in the FFP2 mask?
2. The highest mountain in Europe is Mont Blanc.
But that can be discussed when you think of the Elbrus.
Why?
3. In which unit is the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere measured?
* You can find the answers at the bottom of the newsletter.
Picture of the week
Photo: Mehmet Ergün
There is often barely a second left
to photograph the International Space Station while its silhouette moves over the solar disk: With the solar panels unfolded, the outpost in space is as big as a football field, but the ISS is racing around the earth at 28,800 kilometers per hour.
A few days ago the journey in it came to an end for four space travelers.
After a six-month mission, they landed for the first time in the Gulf of Mexico near Florida using a space capsule from the SpaceX company.
footnote
Stool samples from New England that researchers have examined are
200
years old.
They show the gut health of the residents in the 19th century.
Previously, it was assumed that parasites mainly affected poor people in cities.
However, samples from a rich family's outhouse also contained tapeworm and whipworm eggs.
Recommendations from science
Pandemic: does patent protection for vaccines have to fall to defeat the epidemic?
Corona: How vaccination opponents in the USA endanger the goal of herd immunity
Medication: Nasal sprays are supposed to prevent infections with Sars-CoV-2
Artificial intelligence: Interview with MIT researcher Kate Darling about our future relationship with robots
Botany: What an unearthed bottle reveals about the longevity of plants
* Quiz answers
1) FFP stands for "Filtering Face Piece"
2) At 5642 meters, Elbrus is the highest peak in the Caucasus and the highest mountain in Russia. Whether it or Mont Blanc (4810 meters high) are to be regarded as the highest mountain in Europe depends on the definition of the inner Eurasian border, for which there is no generally binding definition.
3) In ppm, parts per million
