You and I both know a lot about food at this point, don’t we? Everywhere we turn there’s information about food: calorie counters, ingredient lists, and labels on every processed piece of food we buy but somehow we’re not getting it, because America is just getting sicker every year. It’s getting bad enough that health insurance companies are investing their money in the stock of fast food companies, just to hedge their bets. Guys, it’s pretty bad.
I just watched the new movie, Fed Up from Laurie David and Katie Couric and I have to tell you it’s enough to scare the sugar straight out of your cupboard. In fact about 30 minutes in, after frantically taking two and a half full pages of notes, I had to turn the movie off and go to bed just to turn down my anxiety about the whole issue.
There are so many alarming facts and hard science about the food problem in America, it’s almost overwhelming to know where to start, so I’m going to break it down to 7 reasons you should be freaking out about your food right now.
7 Reasons You Should Be Fed Up With Your Diet
Let’s start with this statistic:
- 1 – “By the year 2050 1 out of every 3 Americans will have diabetes.”
YIKES.
That means that in my family of 4, one of us will end up with diabetes if we don’t change the way we eat right now. That terrifies me, and it should terrify you.
Diabetes is no joke, and that’s not even the half of it.
- 2 – “Cases of Type 2 diabetes diagnosed among adolescents (ages 8-19) in 1980: 0.
- 2.1 “Cases of Type 2 diabetes diagnosed among adolescents (age 8-19) in 2010: 57,638.“
FIFTY SEVEN THOUSAND, and counting? That’s almost twice the number of people that currently live in my city.
- 3 – “In a recent study, 43 cocaine-addicted laboratory rats were given the choice of cocaine or sugar water over a 15 day period: 40/43 chose sugar.“
So, only 3 rats chose cocaine. The other 40 decided they’d rather take a hit of sugar. “Sugar substitutes are EIGHT TIMES more addictive than cocaine.” The pleasure centers of our brains react the same way with sugar as they do with cocaine, and we all know cocaine is deadly, don’t we?
- 4 – “There are 600,000 food items in America. 80% have added sugar.“
That means if we’re eating mostly processed food, (which the majority of us are the majority of the time) 80% of what we eat has ADDED sugar.
- 5 – “Between 1980 and 2000, fitness club memberships more than doubled across the United States. During that same time, the obesity rate also doubled.”
If you read between the lines here you’ll see that exercise isn’t the single solution to this problem. You and I can work out all day long, but if we keep eating this way we’ll only continue to get fatter and sicker.
- 6 – “It’s the first time that more people will die from obesity than starvation.“
The first thing I have written down in my notes, from the very beginning of the movie is this, “think of obesity as a kind of malnutrition.” To me malnutrition immediately evokes thoughts of starving children in developing nations. How has malnutrition become such a problem in America? It’s not totally our fault.
- 7 – “Sugar goes by 57 different names in an effort to confuse the consumer.”
Agave Nector, corn syrup, brown sugar, dextrose, fructose, molasses, and organic raw sugar are among them. It’s really easy to be mislead by food labels and frankly, “The deck is stacked against being healthy. It’s like swimming upstream.”
As someone who’s regularly trying to revamp my diet with healthy recipes, I can attest to this. Every doctor I talk to about my Lupus says it’s possible to ease my symptoms, and heal myself from the inside out by changing the way I eat. You’d think with the amount of pain I’m always in this would be an easy change to make.
Clearly, it is not.
I go back and forth between eating healthy and binge eating chocolate Cadbury mini eggs. It sure feels like swimming upstream to me, and I actively working on eating healthier all the time.
You really need to see for yourself. Go see FED UP ASAP-like.
As soon I finished watching the movie I instantly thought of an old David Bowie song, ‘Changes’ because, yo, things are about to ch-ch-CHANGE all up in this house. Take a listen.
If you’re brave enough, will you take the 10 day sugar free challenge? We can do it, you and I.
I’m so grateful to Weinstein for sponsoring this post and supporting this blog, just as I’m grateful to you for reading. My opinions most certainly are my own, but the facts and science provided in this post speak for themselves. Thank you.
Allison
Hello there! I'm Allison Czarnecki, founder + editor of Petit Elefant, a blog all about style on a budget for every part of your life: style / home / travel / family. I do a lot of how-to beauty + style tutorials, travel posts, easy recipes, home remodel projects, and cool DIY crafts you totally want to try. I'm super happily married (to a hot Polish immigrant) and am the mother of two kids, a daughter and son, all of whom are featured here on the regular. We live in the country but we're a little bit rock + roll. Welcome!
