Originally published September 27 2005
America's eating habits are akin to a slow nationwide suicide, columnist says
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Joe Copeland of the Seattle-Post Intelligencer says America is eating itself to death, citing a recent Trust for America's Health study that showed climbing obesity rates in every state except Oregon, and the end result will be the first future generation to have a shorter life span.
Americans are creating an oversized future for themselves: one marked by expanding waistlines, health challenges and the potential for a younger generation that becomes the first to see a shorter lifespan.
We just barely made the 20 best in terms of adults who are either overweight or obese, but finished just out of the 20 best for the more serious rates of obesity.
Overall, 21.7 percent of adults are obese, and 58.6 percent are overweight or obese.
The national target is to have no more than 15 percent of the adult population obese.
Dorothy Teeter, interim director at Public Health -- Seattle & King County, observed the only real change that counts is individual, person-by-person: I can't lose weight for anyone but myself.
Weight gain boils down to math: Are we consuming more calories than we are burning in physical activity?
As the Trust's report showed, the odds are stacked in favor of calorie consumption.
And a lot of the equation's unfairness derives from what we have wrongly come to think of as elements of American life itself, including cars for every trip, mega stores, freeways and foods that are fast, convenient and ever so sweetened, fattened and available.
Enormous societal changes have occurred over a few decades, some simply the result of allowing people opportunities to learn about tobacco's health risks.
On paper, for instance, the state requires elementary schools to offer 100 minutes of physical activity each week.
But, as the state Health Department's Unland observes, the national recommendation is at least 150 minutes.
Unland said even corporate pricing patterns can raise income-related barriers to healthy eating, with costs for fat- and sugar-laden processed foods holding fairly steady compared with steady increases in costs for fresh fruits and vegetables (increases that rarely reach the farmers).
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