Fast or Fast Food?

We are a fat country. “Twenty-two states now have obesity rates that top 30 percent, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey. And while much of the country is holding steady, obesity rates are growing in five states: Ohio, Minnesota, Kansas, New Mexico and Utah.” Yahoo.com/health, September 21^st.  The secret ingredients that Americans love so well: cholesterol and sugar, all with an ocean’s helping of salt. Bacon, bacon, bacon… and we even lure our dogs with the allure of bacon!

Arkansas is the biggest winner/loser at 35.9%, up from 17% in 1995. Double?! “[A] whopping 20% of kids aged 10 to 17 are obese in Arkansas, as are 41.7% of adults aged 45-64.” Yahoo.com. Is their favorite local pastime sitting around chewing… and then swallowing… the fat? It’s an epidemic, one that is taxing our national healthcare system to the breaking point. Diabetes, heart problems, strokes and the dozens of additional serious ailments generated by being overweight.

Where does it all come from? Why do people weigh more today than they did in past eras? I see folks running, spinning, working out and just plain walkin’ n’ sweatin’ all over the place. Apparently, not enough. One common thread seems to be a leading “fatty” indicator: fast food. Not that all fast food is necessarily bad, but in the world of addictive marketing, luring repeat business with loads of butter, lard, bacon and other generous forms of cholesterol – enhanced with tons of sugar and seductive salt – is generally the norm. In a high speed world of school and work, it’s just too easy, and not too expensive, to lean on the un-lean: fast food.

“Every day, more than a third of children in the United States eat fast food. A new report from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention also showed that teens eat twice as much fast food as younger children; on average, 17 percent of teens' daily calories come from fast food.

“Fast food consumption among children grew between 1994 and 2006, rising from 10 percent to 13 percent. The new report, which used data from the CDC's 2011-2012 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, shows only a slight decrease—overall, kids ages 2 to 19 consume 12 percent of their calories from fast food. Surprisingly, these numbers weren't different across socioeconomic status, gender, or weight…

“Over the last 30 years, childhood obesity in the United States has more than doubled. Between 1980 and 2012 the number of kids considered obese increased from 7 percent to 18 percent and the number of teens during that same period quadrupled.” MotherJones.com, September 17^th.

The states with the heaviest folks are heavily represented in the traditional south, with the battle of the bulge between Mississippi and Arkansas bordering on legendary, and massive Texas is indeed filled with massive Texans, the country is moving in the wrong direction. In fact, 88% of the obesity in the country is settling in on the Red State side of the political spectrum, a strange reality since those in the greatest need of subsidized healthcare tend to vote to repeal that program with the greatest ardor and frequency.

We show drop-dead gorgeous models chowing down on the biggest, baddest, juiciest, bacon, cheeseyist burgers you can imagine, such that if these slimmed-down non-representatives of average Americans actually consumed them with any regularity (pun intended), they could never, never get the job to sell the product. Steamy has become a description of our sexual fantasies, but a rare form of fresh vegetable preparation for the vast majority of us.  Of course, too many of us are too big to engage in anything remotely resembling such fantasies.

It’s a big expensive problem that seems to be getting so much worse so much faster than we can afford. As healthcare costs escalate by a sad combination of healthcare corporate manipulation and a rising demand of fat Americans needing more medical services, our ability to pay for such extra needs is plummeting. sSo do we turn to “comfort food” – stuff with fat – to make us feel better, even though in the long term we will feel a whole lot worse?

I’m Peter Dekom, and I wonder what lessons we are teaching our children about diet and health?