“Structural violence is one way of describing social arrangements that put individuals and populations in harm’s way,” says Paul Farmer of Partners in Health. “The arrangements are structural because they are embedded in the political and economic organization of our social world; they are violent because they cause injury to people… neither culture nor pure individual will is at fault; rather, historically given (and often economically driven) processes and forces conspire to constrain individual agency. Structural violence is visited upon all those whose social status denies them access to the fruits of scientific and social progress.”
The food industry is part of the story of structural violence that hurts minorities, the poor, and the food insecure. Those who consume our industrial diet suffer from cognitive and behavioral problems, violence, suicide, homicide, and more chronic disease and premature death and mental health problems. Many of these issues are related to lack of adequate real nutrition and an excess of ultraprocessed foods. Our children struggle with ADHD, learning challenges, and poor academic performance, due in large part to their ultraprocessed diets. Even our military has trouble finding healthy recruits. The food system also harms the very workers who farm and harvest our food. It’s an injustice that we can no longer ignore.
Let’s take a deeper look at the role food injustice plays in our current crises of obesity and chronic disease, our poor national academic performance, the perpetuation of poverty, the challenges facing food workers and farmworkers, violence, mental health, behavioral problems, and even national security. These are not separate problems.