Originally published September 14 2011
Every other American obese by 2030?
by S. D. Wells
(NaturalNews) According to the world's leading medical journal, Great Britain's Lancet, by the year 2030, half of all Americans will be obese." The Lancet suggests that the United States Government should somehow begin a top down approach to regulating and taxing unhealthy foods in order to reduce obesity, all while reducing the cost of healthy foods and making them more accessible.
The easiest scapegoat for obesity is convenience. One could easily blame fast food, which is usually hot, quick, cheap and convenient. In fact, fast food restaurants are so prominent in the United States that many families rely on them as a primary source for meals.
It is just as easy for one to walk into a grocery store and buy a loaf of white bread, some deli meats, a jar of mayonnaise, and some sugary drink mix and accomplish the same feat. But everyone has the choice not to buy what is known to be unhealthy, so what is the true source of the problem?
If the Government all of a sudden taxes everything that's not healthy, won't the corporations that mass produce these unhealthy foods, and the franchises that make a fortune off consumer "laziness" protest Washington and payoff the regulators to keep the system moving forward, towards this gloomy, obese future? Also, why would a Government that makes a fortune off its citizens being sick turn everything around 180 degrees and serve up healthy food at a bargain price?
The cure for obesity is education. In a country where whole grain foods are believed to help the body stay lean, high fructose corn syrup is marketed as harmless, and where aisles at the grocery stores contain massive amounts of processed foods and drinks with synthetic sweeteners, the United States is speeding towards disaster.
Basically, whole grains cause inflammation in the body and spike insulin production, which reeks havoc on hormone production. Insulin production is a vital process for storing nutrients and processing glucose in the blood, but the average body can't manage these overloads that are consistently poured into it.
High fructose corn syrup, which is about to change its name in order to avoid its current stigma as being a leading cause of diabetes, causes significant weight gain in lab animals, and long-term consumption can lead to abnormal increases in body fat, which leads to heart disease.
Processed foods and many sugar substitutes are synthetic or partially synthetic, which means they do not come from nature, they are man made. Aspartame, Sucralose and Sorbitol have all but taken over when it comes to diet foods. Some scientists and nutritionists claim that because these taste sweet, they actually fool the body and brain into thinking the body is taking in sugar and the end result is that the body craves sugar even more, and so one's appetite increases.
Grass roots grocery stores, like Trader Joes, have now become popular in major cities all over the country. Farmer's markets are getting busier, and many schools are trying to adopt more nutritious lunch programs and filter out junk foods and snack machines from the choices students have on a daily basis.
The realistic solution to the obesity problem in the United States is a long term, slow grinding one, but it doesn't appear that it will ever generate momentum from the top down, but rather from the bottom up. In a nation where national healthcare is simply a pipe dream, it's highly unlikely that the government will change its capitalistic bombardment of convenient, fattening foods that feed the vicious, money making cycle.
As a rule of thumb, eat natural food that grows off of trees and out of the ground, and avoid food "products" that are boxed, bagged, canned or have a list of ingredients that takes longer to read than this article.
Sources:
1. http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/iss...
2. http://www.nakedfoodcooking.com/
3. http://wellnessmama.com/575/how-grains-are-k...
4. http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S...
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