America's obesity epidemic is turning into a full-fledged wellness crisis
A couple days ago, several former U.S. military commanders published a joint commentary in the Washington Post sounding the alarm about one of the greatest unknown threats to our nation's defense: obese children.
We've known for over a decade that the United States has been suffering from an obesity epidemic. Rising consumption of unhealthy, processed foods, combined with a lack of sleep and exercise, is resulting in the proliferation of diseases like Type 2 diabetes. It is now estimated that one in three young Americans will be affected by obesity related conditions.
The obesity epidemic is already negatively impacting our way of life. It is causing numerous and sensitive issues at public schools and higher healthcare costs. Now, according to the leaders of our Armed Forces, it has gotten to the point that huge numbers of America's youth are no longer eligible to defend their country because they aren't healthy enough to do so safely.
This isn't the first time such a concern has been raised to Congress. In 1946 the Richard Russel National School Lunch Act (PDF) was passed to ensure that our children would receive healthy meals at school:
For the sake of our children and our country, it's time we started strictly regulating marketing aimed at younger audiences, overhauled America's public school food programs to replace processed food with organic, local choices, and gave serious thought to how we can feasibly strengthen physical education curricula.
If we do nothing, this problem will only grow in magnitude. 9.5% of infants and toddlers in the United States are already considered obese. We can't let this epidemic continue to threaten America's well-being. And we can't continue to treat symptoms. It's time to mount a full-scale attack on the root causes of obesity before our poor lifestyle choices destroy us from within.
We've known for over a decade that the United States has been suffering from an obesity epidemic. Rising consumption of unhealthy, processed foods, combined with a lack of sleep and exercise, is resulting in the proliferation of diseases like Type 2 diabetes. It is now estimated that one in three young Americans will be affected by obesity related conditions.
The obesity epidemic is already negatively impacting our way of life. It is causing numerous and sensitive issues at public schools and higher healthcare costs. Now, according to the leaders of our Armed Forces, it has gotten to the point that huge numbers of America's youth are no longer eligible to defend their country because they aren't healthy enough to do so safely.
This isn't the first time such a concern has been raised to Congress. In 1946 the Richard Russel National School Lunch Act (PDF) was passed to ensure that our children would receive healthy meals at school:
It is hereby declared the policy of Congress, as a measure of national security, to safeguard the health and well-being of the Nation's children and to encourage the consumption of nutritious agricultural commodities and other food, by assisting the states, through grants-in-aid and other means, in providing an adequate supply of foods and other facilities for the establishment, maintenance, operation, and expansion of nonprofit school lunch programs.Although this statute was further refined in the Child Nutrition Act of 1966 (PDF), the law has once again fallen behind the times. And so has common knowledge of nutrition. Jaime Oliver's Food Revolution recently proved it there are Americans who consider a deep fried box of French fries to be a healthy vegetable.
For the sake of our children and our country, it's time we started strictly regulating marketing aimed at younger audiences, overhauled America's public school food programs to replace processed food with organic, local choices, and gave serious thought to how we can feasibly strengthen physical education curricula.
If we do nothing, this problem will only grow in magnitude. 9.5% of infants and toddlers in the United States are already considered obese. We can't let this epidemic continue to threaten America's well-being. And we can't continue to treat symptoms. It's time to mount a full-scale attack on the root causes of obesity before our poor lifestyle choices destroy us from within.
# Posted by Dorsol : 8:47 PM
Comments:
This is about more than just poor lifestyle. Our food supply has been compromised. This includes the use of GM seeds, pesticides, hormones used on animals and antibiotics used on animals, corn syrup laced with mercury in nearly every processed food. If you really want to scale a full-fledged war on obesity, we need to address these things. Most notably, the use of GM seeds simultaneously increases the use of pesticides in our foods and there is VERY LITTLE safety testing that has been performed on GM seeds. The few unbiased tests that have occurred are showing serious health risks from these seeds including the possibility of sterility, allergies and autoimmune diseases. We need to return to a pure food supply.
This is not to say that exercise and better food choices should not also be a focus, but most people are unaware of the tampering with our food supply.
OneLiberalVoice, I agree with you completely and in fact during some of my talks during the writing of the article the topic of McDonald's adding addictive substances to their food did come up. I'm hoping to do a follow up article focusing on the need to elect more individuals with a science background to the State and Federal levels of government so we have policymakers in place who understand the complexity of the issue.
As we continue to grapple with Obesity, a question that is not getting too much attention is the role Alternative systems of medicine like Ayurveda can play in controlling / curing obesity. A system based on Nature can not be all that bad :-)
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