Over-fed but undernourished nation. The obesity epidemic and the so-called "Fundamental Rights" of the American Food Corporations to sell and market sickness!
Statistics show that one in three kids born after the year 2000 is either obese or overweight. The growing poverty in America and obesity epidemic go hand in hand and in fact, a study published in the Journal of Urban Health suggests that obesity caused by malnutrition is an epidemic in the United States. The US isn’t the only country with such findings and another study by New Zealand researchers shows that one thirds of preschool kids are either obese or overweight. According to researchers, 82% of pre-school kids do not get enough dietary fiber and 68% don’t get enough omega 3 fatty acids (found in fish and nuts) that are essential for brain development and health.
The recent studies have found an interesting contradiction: Obesity is linked to malnourishment:
But how could that be? A rich nation (with 17 Trillion dollars GDP a year) is starving to death when an average American consumes more than 3700 calories a day? It appears that lack of proper nutrition (in form of fiber, bioflavonoids, antioxidants and micronutrients (only found in raw fruits and veggies), can lead to obesity, even when people eat enough number of calories. The junk food industry has made us to believe that all calories are equal and thanks to nutrition science promoted by the American Dietetic Association (run by junk food, biotech and chemical companies); many nutrition charts promote the idea that ‘all calories are equal’. [Not all calories are equal: Only counting calories (calories in=calories out) isn’t enough for maintaining a healthy weight, because calories are no longer calories. For example, calorie from high fructose corn syrup (consumed in most processed foods) isn’t the type of calorie that you can burn by exercising. Toxic foods and additives like MSG or HFCS damage every organ in the body and cause other complications and issues that will impact the ability of the body to maintain a healthy weight.]
When Mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg proposed a ban on super large sizes of sugary drinks, the president and general manager at Coca Cola, Katie Bayne responded that “A calorie is a calorie. What our drinks offer is hydration. That’s essential to the human body. We offer great taste and benefits whether it’s an uplift or carbohydrates or energy. We don’t believe in empty calories. We believe in hydration.”
There is an ‘Art’ in screwing people on every level that you could imagine. We should give the corporate PR and president of companies like Coca Cola, PepsiCo or Energy drink companies a lot of credit for their wit and corporate cunning tactics:
So far, the soda industry has been able to manipulate and brainwash most people into thinking that their toxic drinks are Essential to human’s health by offering hydration, I assume that’s why PepsiCo and Coca cola make billions of dollars on profit every single year. The fact about sugary drinks including energy drink, Coke and Pepsi is that the caffeine in all of them will come to play by dehydrating your body and after drinking sodas, you will end up losing a lot of water by going to bathroom.
Phosphoric acid and caffeine (in sodas like Coke) deplete your body from other essential nutrients like the bonded magnesium, zinc and calcium as well as sodium, electrolyte and water that were headed to your bones. After losing the valuable nutrients in your body (that could have been used for hydrating or building stronger bones and teeth), you get sugar rush and your system will crash.
So either Ms Katie Bayne (the president of Coca Cola) is stupid or doesn’t know what the heck she is talking about, (which I really doubt that’s the case). Recently, the National Toxicity Program found “clear evidence” of 4-Mel toxicity in sodas and linked 4-Mel to infertility, thyroid dysfunction and liver and lung cancer: http://www.seattleorganicrestaurants.com/vegan-whole-food/Pepsi-Coca-Cola-harmful-ingredients.php
The environment around us is becoming so hostile that one can easily eat themselves into obesity:
We live in a world that your zip code matters more than your genetics, since the poorer you are, the more likely you are to be obese. The paradox of an overfed nation starving itself into death goes back to the basics of our agricultural practices. In the late 1980s, America was concerned about food security, and as a result we spent a lot of tax payers’ money through subsidy for corn and research on how to produce cheap and processed foods. In less than a decade we found ourselves in abundance.
Up to this day, the farmers are exploiting the subsidy law and companies like Monsanto and DuPont have been genetically modified most of our food supply by ruining the nutrients in most plants. There is an old saying that ‘Good health might make sense, but doesn’t make money”. 50% of US farmlands are planted with soy bean and corn, whereas only 3% of US farmlands are used to grow fruits and vegetables. The profit margin of processed foods is about 90%, whereas profit margin for fresh products (fruits and vegetables) is only 10%. Maybe it’s time to go back to the old saying that ‘if a food makes its own packaging, then eat it’.
The so-called “Fundamental Rights“ of the American Food Corporations to sell and market toxic ingredients like High Fructose Corn Syrup, or GMO corn is threading our health and well-being -shamefully, using our tax dollars against us:
Giant Frankenfood & junk food companies are the largest advertisers using marketing media & manipulative tactics such as "patriotism", “liberty” or “freedom” to sell their poisons. Because it’s a free country, because freedom of choice is an American ideal, the whole thing is worth killing people with foods high in GMOs, white crappy sugar and artificial preservative and additives subsidized by your tax dollars. But somehow the junk food industry that supports freedom of choice (when it comes to junk food) spends $70 million against the will of 93% of all Americans not to put a label on GM foods.
While 1 in 3 kids born after the year 2000 are either obese or overweight, the junk food industry takes pride in having a ‘God-given Right’ to manufacture products that poison their consumers and fully blame the parents of obese kids for failing to meet their children’s nutritional needs.
No one disagrees that parents of obese kids are somewhat to blame, but how about the responsibility of junk food corporations who knowingly manufacture a product that poison their consumers? Why shouldn’t they take some responsibility for what they do?
These are the same corporations who put up brightly colored ads at kid’s eye level in convenience stores. They hire gorgeous twenty-somethings to frequent popular venues and seduce young adults into attending lavish corporate-sponsored parties. In fact, Energy Drink companies have been using this technique for a long time. Click here to find more about the 14 year old Anais Fournier who died in 2012 after consuming energy drinks. http://www.seattleorganicrestaurants.com/vegan-whole-food/toxic-ingredients-in-energy-drinks.php
Many kids in poor neighborhoods in America grow up on a bag of chips and cheetos while the American food corporations sell the notion of being a proud American that has freedom of choice when it comes to junk foods. With 17 Trillion dollar GDP a year, our tax dollars become Twinkies and GMO corn.
How can any company, especially one with such a conscience no less, knowingly manufacture products that poison its consumers? And more importantly, make that product look cool and hip and sexy and fun, so they can get children. How can anyone defend a company that would do such a thing and how could any society tolerate what they do?
Sources:
http://civileats.com/2012/06/27/the-obesity-paradox-overfed-but-undernourished/
http://www.nationofchange.org/ultimate-paradox-us-overfed-and-malnourished-nation-1372077901