America is sick. And it’s not just the economy, or the perpetual state of war … it’s our health. The United States is the most obese country in the world, and the U.S. government is causing the problem. By prohibiting the cultivation of healthy foods in the America, allowing dangerous artificial sweeteners in our food, and putting endocrine inhibitors into our drinking water, the government has cultivated a culture of obesity.
A whopping 67 percent of Americans are overweight or obese. That’s 93 million Americans who are obese and more than 9 million adolescents who are obese. What’s more, obesity disproportionately affects women, minorities and low-income families. In the United States, 73.7 percent of blacks are obese, 69.1 percent of Latinos, yet only 62.8 percent of whites are obese. Low-income families are at a substantially higher risk of developing obesity.
Diabetes rates are growing rapidly, and it is projected that one in three children will develop Type 2 diabetes as adults. How will one-third of the adult workforce having a crippling disease affect the American economy?
All of this fat is expensive. In 2000 obesity cost Americans $117 billion, and diabetes rates have doubled since then. With government-mandated healthcare in our very near future, we the working taxpayers will be stuck with the bills for these obese poverty-stricken citizens who can’t afford their own medicine.
How can this crucial issue be fixed without a heavy-handed government mandating what we serve our children in the privacy of our own homes?
First, let’s look at how we got here. The aspartame (aka “NutraSweet”) used in our “diet” soda in place of sugar actuallyincreases the risk of obesity. Aspartame tricks the digestive tract into thinking that calories are coming, so the body increases insulin in preparation of sugar. When no sugar comes, the cells are now extra-hungry, so the next time the diet soda-drinker sits down for a meal, he eats more that he would had he not drank that diet soda.
A 2005 study conducted by Dr. Sharon P. Fowler and colleagues at the University of Texas Health Science Center found an exceptionally strong association between diet soda and obesity. Each can of aspartame-sweetened soda consumed each day increases the risk of becoming overweight by 41 percent.
The Food and Drug Administration endangers the health of Americans by allowing aspartame into thousands of food products.
The FDA also allows genetically modified foods into our grocery stores and into our bodies without labels informing the consumer that what they are eating was engineered by Monsanto rather than evolution. How can citizens make healthy choices for themselves and their families when the government does not require clear labeling of foods?
Your food is no longer safe, and neither is your water. The government adds chemicals to your water that slows down your metabolism. Doctors have known for years that fluoride, when ingested, replaces iodine in the thyroid gland, which reduces thyroid activity. Hypothyroidism, an underactive thyroid, affects more than 12 million Americans, most of them women.
Dr. Laura Prestley, a PhD in chemistry, has hypothyroidism. After doing some research she decided to eliminate fluoride from her diet completely – six months later, her hypothyroidism waned, and within a year it was completely gone.
The federal government also prohibits American farmers from growing healthy foods. Hemp seed is a high-protein, high-fiber food and rich in Omega-3 fatty acids, similar to salmon. Hemp seed consumption decreases LDL cholesterol, lowers blood pressure, and increases metabolism.
In America we are forced to import our hemp food products from Canada because American farmers are forbidden from growing hemp in the United States. As a result, hemp foods are too expensive for many Americans, especially those at greatest risk of obesity.
The government pollutes our food and water supply with chemicals like aspartame and fluoride while preventing American farmers from growing healthy foods, like hemp, on American soil. Government is responsible for a large part of the obesity crisis in America.
There are several simple solutions to this problem that do not involve government mandates on individuals, but rather corporate responsibility and transparency.
1: Institute clear labeling of all GMO foods and products containing GMO foods.
2: Replace aspartame with a natural sugar substitute like Xylitol or Stevia, both of which are plant-based rather than chemical-based. Xylitol, a natural sugar made from birch trees, is half the calories of sugar, and fights cavities. It's even used by the U.S. Army for soldiers in war zones who can't brush their teeth regularly.
3: Educate parents and children, especially in low-income schools, about the dangers of obesity and what foods can help cause obesity.
4: Stop adding endocrine toxins like fluoride to our drinking water supply.
5: End of the prohibition on growing hemp in these United States.
To see a visual representation of the growth of obesity in the United States of the past 10 years, click here.
Hemp used to be a major cash crop in the United States. To see a movie made by the U.S. Department of Agriculture on the benefits of hemp, made during WWII, click here.
One reply on “The Government Is Making Us Fat”
I think it is a bit of both.When I was at school, a miunmim of 2 hours PE was incorporated into the curriculum, even if you are doing your GCSEs, and PE was not a subject you picked as an option, you had to do 2 x 1.5 hour sessions a week. When my younger cousin was doing her GCSEs 2 years ago, it was an optional thing, and she spent that time sitting on her bum at home. It doesn’t help either when the school cooks do not cook as much anymore, merely reheat stuff.My mother raised my brother and myself on her own and on a meagre income, she often took either one of us with her, on Saturday, to Walthamstow Market (it was a half hour walk from my crummy council estate). We took an interest in the fruit and veg the guys were putting into the paper bags, and when it came to the supermarket, my bro and I had a friendly competition to find the cheapest but healthiest *item which was going to be for dinner that night* I think that was half the reason she allowed us to tag along ;o) but, she did not allow my brother or me to dictate our dinners (when we had them), we only had one choice and it was either on our plate, or we go hungry. She cannot understand why one of my aunts would cook a different meal for each of her children, and then something else for herself she is the mother, she should decide on dinner not the kids (who would be more than happy to live off of burger and chips, or pizza 365 days a year). The problem at home, is that most parents dare not leave their kiddies out of their sight to go outside in the (somewhat) fresh air and play, as they are told that a paedophile is on every corner and will snatch them away, and that is only when play areas or dirt tracks are not being sold on for redevelopment (it was heartbreaking going through my old council estate to see that the play area I spent a lot of my school holidays as a child has been turned into a . car park!)We are living in a time when doctors are seeing children with Rickets again, this is a disease which has hardly been seen in the UK for nearly 80 years! Both have a part to play, people must be very naive (or extremely stupid) not to make a link between an increasing sedentary childhood, increasing consumption in what I can only call crap , and lack of focus on physical education as a child, and their expanding waistlines!