2026-10-09
24 分钟The Economist
Hello and welcome to The Intelligence from The Economist.
I'm Jason Palmer.
Today on the show, the plague that may or may not have been released from a Russian lab,
and remembering the inventor of the flat-screen display.
First up, though:
You are what you eat, from your head down to your feet.
Things like meat and eggs and fish, you need to build up muscle tissue.
Vitamins and minerals can help you on your way...
For absolutely decades, governments have been trying to inform people about healthy diets.
...eat five a day and you're doing it right.
Have veggies and fruit from morning till night.
It's easy to see why.
Obesity and infirmity on the rise means ever more pressure on health systems,
particularly socialised ones, and lost productivity.
Less cynically, governments are just doing their job of trying to protect citizens, in this case, from themselves.
So, five a day is the magic rule... okay, let's thank you...
But here's the thing.
That kind of public service messaging, it doesn't work.
After many years of telling people to eat more healthily, governments are trying more radical measures.