Model Essay 14: Unhealthy Diets and Public Health
Problem and solution: causes and what should be done. The question, a plan, the essay itself, and why it would score well.
Unofficial original RCF practice material
Original question and essay written by RCF English. Not endorsed by the British Council, IDP: IELTS Australia or Cambridge University Press & Assessment.
The question
In many countries people are eating more unhealthy food, and rates of diet-related illness are rising.
What are the causes of this, and what measures could governments take to address it?
Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.
Write at least 250 words.
The plan
| Paragraph | Content |
|---|---|
| Introduction | Rephrase the problem. Signal: two causes, then two measures. |
| Body 1 | Causes: price and time. Processed food is cheap and instant; fresh food is neither. |
| Body 2 | Cause: advertising and availability, especially near schools. |
| Body 3 | Measures: pricing (tax on sugar, support for fresh produce) and rules on advertising and labelling. |
| Conclusion | Name the measure most likely to work, and why. |
The model essay
Question: In many countries people are eating more unhealthy food, and rates of diet-related illness are rising. What are the causes of this, and what measures could governments take to address it?
Diets in many countries have worsened, and illnesses linked to food, such as diabetes and heart disease, have become more common. This essay will consider the main causes and the steps governments could take.
The first cause is economic. Processed food is usually cheaper per meal than fresh ingredients, keeps for weeks rather than days, and requires no preparation. A parent finishing a shift at eight in the evening is choosing not between healthy and unhealthy food but between food that takes forty minutes and food that takes four. Until that difference in cost and time closes, advice about balanced diets will have limited effect.
The second cause is how heavily this food is promoted and how easily it is found. Advertising for it is constant, and outlets cluster around schools, stations and hospitals. Healthy options, by contrast, are often absent in exactly the places where people are hungry and in a hurry.
Governments can act on both. Pricing is the most direct lever: taxing sugary drinks raises their price and has reduced sales where it has been tried, while subsidies or vouchers can lower the price of vegetables and fruit for low-income households. Rules are the second lever, covering where fast-food outlets may open, what may be advertised to children, and how clearly sugar and salt must be shown on the front of a package, so that a shopper can compare two products in seconds.
In conclusion, unhealthy eating is driven by cost, time and heavy promotion rather than by ignorance. For that reason, measures that change the price and availability of food are likely to achieve more than campaigns that simply tell people what they already know.
Language worth borrowing
- This essay will consider the main causes and the steps X could take.
- A plain signal of structure. It costs one sentence and guides the whole essay.
- A parent ... is choosing not between X and Y but between A and B.
- Reframes the problem. This kind of sentence shows real thought.
- Until that difference closes, advice about X will have limited effect.
- Links cause to solution before you reach the solutions.
- Pricing is the most direct lever.
- Names the tool. Lever, measure, step are useful, plain words here.
- ...are likely to achieve more than campaigns that simply tell people what they already know.
- A conclusion that chooses between the solutions rather than listing them again.
Why this would score well
The four things an examiner marks, and what this essay does about each. The wording of the criteria is IELTS's own and is published for candidates; the comments are ours.
| Criterion | What this essay does |
|---|---|
| Task Response | Both halves of the question are answered, and the measures address the causes actually given, rather than arriving from nowhere. |
| Coherence and Cohesion | Causes then measures, with the link between them stated before the change of direction. |
| Lexical Resource | The vocabulary of policy used plainly: subsidies, labelling, availability, outlets. |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | Longer sentences with subordinate clauses, kept readable because each one carries a single idea. |
Check your own attempt
- Did you answer both parts, causes and measures?
- Does each measure deal with a cause you actually named?
- Did you avoid inventing statistics about illness?
- Are your measures specific enough to picture (a tax, a label, a rule on where shops open)?
- Does the conclusion choose, rather than repeat?
- Are you between 250 and 300 words?
Use it, do not memorise it
An essay learnt by heart is easy to spot and cannot fit the question you are actually given. Take the shapes from Language worth borrowing, write your own answer to this question in forty minutes, then compare.
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Essay 15: Global Brands and Local Culture
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All 20 essays
The full list, with the question type of each.