As report after report has detailed, Americans have been getting sicker and heavier over the last few decades.
By sicker, I don't mean getting more colds, I mean heart disease, diabetes, reproductive health problems and cancer.
By heavier, I mean even with respect to the fact that given a normal range of body types, very few people look like waifish teenage fashion models and that's perfectly fine. Really, it's fine. No, I remember when Type II diabetes was commonly referred to as adult onset diabetes, but you just don't hear that as often now that children are getting it and there's an epidemic of obesity in infants and under-10s.
While there are some lifestyle factors at work that people can address on their own, these major demographic changes have come on much too rapidly to be solely accounted for by biology and personal choices. More, putting the blame solely on individuals often seems to prevent our taking responsibility for collective action to fix the economic and environmental causes of all this bad health.
Though what if you knew that even some of the obesity epidemic was being caused by additives we're absorbing from food containers and consumer goods, from bad official nutritional guidelines, or from agricultural chemicals? What if you knew that the government standard for testing to see if synthetic compounds were safe, or were being consumed in safe amounts, came to believing the manufacturers' solemn word that no one will drop dead on contact? What if you knew that some people were profiting from creating an environment in which it's almost a miracle that anyone is healthy and fit? Would you think differently about how the problem should be solved?
Also, you don't have to imagine if all that were true, because even obesity can be partly caused by synthetic compounds that have been introduced to our environment and food supplies with extremely little safety testing. And that's really just the tip of the iceberg.
If you've never experienced the CDC's Evolving Map of Obesity Rates, then do yourself a favor and check it out. The graphs are simple: a color-coded maps that get updated every year. Yet the ugly truth revealed is harrowing: Obesity rates that would have been considered unimaginably high as recently as the 80s would now be considered unattainably low. Each year the situation deteriorates. We are barreling headfirst into a health nightmare. 2008 was the worse year on record with 6 states having obesity rates above 30%.
Over the course of long Presidential campaign I was struck with how intertwined the major problems facing the U.S. and the world really are. And, while the debate moderators considered it obvious that the economic collapse would prevent the incoming administration from working on anything else, I was seeing it as another piece of the puzzle. Here are some of the major issues government should be addressing:
1. Global warming/death of life on earth
2. Economy/jobs
2a. Auto industry failing
3. Dependence on foreign oil and resultant cultural/security issues
4. Obesity and resultant health costs
Barack Obama wants to invest in infrastructure. Yesterday, many of the nation's governors pushed infrastructure spending as a job creation tool for America. I hope this involves more than building new roads and bridges because it's an opportunity to reinvent the country in ways that can begin to address all of the problems listed above.
How about a nation connected by high speed electric rail? Joe Biden is for it. How about downtowns accessible by rail, by bike, by foot but not accessible by car (helps with fitness too)? How about an auto industry that begins to phase out gas-powered cars and is required to immediately increase production of electric cars? We're paying for that industry's survival anyway.
What else? Please put some bones on this "green new deal" in comments.
The Evolution of Mike Huckabee
By Kerry Trueman, Eating Liberally
Ah, the ghosts of Christmas past. Here's a souvenir from the days when Mike Huckabee was a morbidly obese diabetic whose doctor gave him ten years to live if he didn't shape up.
That was four years ago. Huckabee took his doctor's warning to heart and shed more than a hundred pounds by adopting a healthier diet and
becoming a marathon runner. Now that he's half the man he was, Huckabee's a great poster boy for eating right and exercising. He's one of those rare Republicans, along with Arnold Schwarzenegger, who's been willing to condemn the sale of junk food in schools.
He's also one of the only two Republican presidential candidates (along with John McCain) who's willing to concede that climate change is a real crisis. But as progressive as he may be on issues like the obesity epidemic and global warming, Huckabee doesn't believe in evolution. Guess he hasn't seen this video:
