Nowadays, in a developed country like France, we observe important inequalities in the access to healthy food. Working classes and old people are more likely to suffer from overweight or obesity. As these are factors increasing risk of other diseases such as Type II diabete, we can guess that they will be more likely to develop other illnesses.

While looking at the reasons that could explain these observations, we notice the lower nutritional quality of the products sold in hard-discount supermarkets compared to those sold in more expensive ones.

However, differences in incomes are not the only cause of food inequalities. Indeed, a main factor to take into account is food habits: upper classes and retiree consume more fruits and vegetables than the rest of the population. This is not necessarily linked to a better weight, for instance retired people are more likely to be overweight than students even if the former eat more fruits and vegetables than the latter. Nevertheless it has huge consequences on people's health. Fruits and vegetables are the main source of vitamins, essential nutrients that cannot be synthesized by the organism or not in sufficient quantities.

For many years now, developed countries have tried to tackle the issue of junk food and to promote healthier food habits. However our observations show that there is still space for improvement in this domain. The fact that more educated people seem to have better food habits is an element that makes us believe in the necessity to improve food education. There is also a need for more transparency coming from the food industry. Currently, there is no obligation to display the nutriscore on a product and the consumer has to be really well-informed to find it out. Specific apps such as the one provided by OpenFoodFact makes it possible to find it but this means that only the people that are already well-informed and aware about the stakes of high quality food will look for it. A change in the legislation on this topic appears necessary.