America: A Big, Fat, Stupid Nation?
Filed under: General Health, Nutrition
Ok, so I don’t really think America is stupid. That title comes from a Huffington Post article that Tony Gentilcore linked to yesterday. That article, for lack of a better word, was awesome.
In this article author Justin Stoneman points out how America has been fooled to eat crap and think it is good for us. He points out how a fat and unhealthy America is good for the food and pharmaceutical industry, and makes them billions.
I highly recommend you check this article out, as he has some excellent things to say. Here are some of my favorite quotes:
“Latest figures confirm the ridiculous: three out of four of you will be ‘overweight or obese’ by 2020. To gauge perspective: there are now more ‘fat’ people than ‘white’ people in America. Perhaps our bigots of the future will swing their hatred away from ‘race’ to the slim and healthy.
The shrinking minority are, indeed, the shrinking minority.”
This is a long one, but he just has so many excellent point.
“Americans (still) rule the world. They can stroll on the moon, influence global diplomacy, finance unstable countries around the world…yet they cannot keep their own people relatively healthy? Of course they could, if it were actually desired. Unfortunately, for the world’s most powerful companies, an unhealthy America is, perversely, a very profitable America.
If I own a sock company, I need people with feet to maintain my business. Similarly, if I own a diet company (total combined U.S. industry value: est. $45-$100 billion), I need fat people. Luckily for the diet industry, the even more powerful food industry (estimated value: astronomical — U.S. food-based retailing alone >$1,200 billion) make their main profits from cheap processed foods. Foods which make people fat.
The medical industry is similarly grateful — the unhealthy obese are as vital for their profit margins as oil is to the oil business. And we’ve seen what happens when the oil industry has their supply stream compromised.
So, if industries (with a combined net worth and power exceeding many actual countries), need a vital supply chain to survive, we can safely say that they will probably work out how to get it.
They need fat people. So what do they do?”
I should probably be careful with this next one since I am a member, but it is unfortunately true.
“The ADA (American Dietetic Association) has complete monopoly on dietary advice. To keep the bubble airtight, the full might of the law has even been implemented. Kim Jong-il would be proud of the attention to detail.
With that in mind, who precisely is ‘sponsoring’ the ADA and the nutritional advice you receive?
My friends, it is a beautiful army. Partners (recent and current — and their latest annual revenue figures):
Coca Cola (revenue $31.4 billion), GlaxoSmithKline (revenue $42.5 billion), Hershey’s (revenue $5.3 billion), Unilever (revenue $55.8 billion), Aramark (revenue: $12.3 billion). There are even some ‘premier sponsors’: Mars (revenue: $30 billion), PepsiCo (revenue $44.3 billion), Truvia sweetener (revenue of parent company Cargill: $116.6 billion), Kellogg’s ($12.7 billion).
ADA ‘sponsors’ have combined revenues of over $400 billion.”
Another simple piece of common sense.
“Your grandparents were raised in a generation aware that God’s supermarket was better than man’s. Saturated fat was a vital part of their diet. For them, obesity was not a common health problem. They were not suffering malnutrition in the fat soluble vitamins (A, D, E and K). Remarkably, you, dear Western reader, probably are.”
And finally…
“Your commercially sponsored weight loss advice is making you gain weight. It would be laughable, a comic irony, if the consequences were not so tragic. From diabetes to obesity to cancer to heart disease, the price being paid for corporate profit is in lives.”
I highly recommend you check out the entire piece, it is absolutely fantastic. He also provides an excellent graph showing exactly when the US obesity rates began to climb, and his reasons why. Fascinating stuff.
Check out the BSP Training & Nutrition Newsletter!
You will get immediate access to:
- Weekly updates and exclusive content.
- The 20-page report "The Truth About Saturated Fat & Cholesterol."
- Become more awesome!
Posted on October 19th, 2010 by Brian St. Pierre
1 Comment
October 19th, 2010 at 3:26 pm
Great stuff!