America’s love affair with cheap food has landed us in ninth place on the obesity scale out of 194 countries ranked by the World Health Organization. According to the New York Times, two-thirds of the US population is overweight.
Diabetes has reached epidemic proportions, with the economic cost of caring for those with the disease running one out of every five healthcare dollars spent. As of 2008, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says there are 24 million people with diabetes in the US; but another estimated 57 million are pre-diabetic. That’s roughly a quarter of the American population! You can easily see that we’re speeding toward a huge increase in healthcare dollars for diabetes treatment alone. The number one risk factor for type 2 diabetes is obesity.
Being overweight or obese mainly comes from taking in more calories than are expended. Along with a sedentary lifestyle, the cause is what we are eating—junk food. The McGraw-Hill Concise Dictionary of Modern Medicine defines junk food as “a popular term for any food low in essential nutrients and high in salt—e.g., potato chips/crisps, pretzels; refined carbohydrates—e.g., candy, soft drinks; or saturated fats—e.g., cake, chocolates.”
The American Heart Association recently said the number one source of added sugars in the American diet comes from soft drinks and sugar-sweetened beverages. It also said that high intake of added sugars is implicated in numerous poor health conditions, including obesity, high blood pressure and other risk factors for heart disease and stroke. The cost of cardiovascular disease and stroke in the US this year is estimated at $475.3 billion.
In 2009, the US is expected to spend $2.5 trillion on healthcare. That’s 17.6 percent of our gross domestic product. Wow!
It has been suggested that a tax on junk food would be in order. This is not a bad idea, as it could help subsidize our healthcare costs that are soaring from eating it. But how about eliminating the federal subsidies that enable low-cost corn-based junk food, drinks sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup, and many other processed foods?
When you look at these statistics, shouldn’t we all be on the same page in doing everything we can to replace the empty calories that are the hallmark of the American diet with nutritious and organic foods? Especially for our children!
Publisher
You’ve done a great job of succinctly describing the general cause of our nationwide obesity. I’ll be bookmarking this in order to refer others.
In the last few months, I’ve moved away from eating most of the problem foods, and I already feel better. I still occasionally treat myself to some of them, but no more than 1 serving every week or so!
I’ve also blogged about how my eating habits have changed. You can see my block by clicking on the supplied link (Which might be by clicking on my name – this is my first time posting here and it asked me for a website, but I don’t know how it will appear!)