OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 29 August 2003 — Some one million Israelis, or 22 percent of the population, are unable to afford an adequate diet as the Jewish state goes through its worst recession in its 55-year history, an official report found yesterday.
More than a fifth of the population has “real problems feeding themselves,” said the report, commissioned by the Health Ministry and based on a survey of 1,000 people carried out in February and March.
The report estimated that poor diet affected 630,000 Jews, 200,000 new immigrants and 170,000 Arab Israelis. At least 600,000 people suffered “severe” nutritional problems, 300,000 said they had lost weight because they lacked the means to feed themselves properly and about 500,000 admitted to skipping a meal each day to save money, the study found. Of those severely affected, 46 percent suffered from anaemia, 33 percent had high cholesterol levels and about 27 percent suffered from hypertension.
The leader of the trade union-based One People party, Amir Peretz, called for an emergency parliamentary debate on the problem.
Yuli Tamir, an MP from the opposition Labour party, said the figures “put the Israeli state and government to shame.”
