The Fattening of America: A Review

What are your immediate reactions to these words:

"62 million adults in the United States are obese. An additional 12.5 million kids are overweight."

"Due to increases in the prevalence of childhood obesity, today's children may not live as long as their parents."

"The data suggests that about 70 percent of diabetes cases in the United States are caused by excess weight."

"in 2004 the average American consumed 52 gallons of soft drinks, or an average of 16 ounces per day."

I don't know about you, but just the viewing of these statistics alone makes me, well, lose my lunch. Where did I find them? They come from an extremely reliable source: Health economist, Dr. Eric Finkelstein. These research statistics, and more, are documented in the new book: The Fattening Of America: How The Economy Makes Us Fat, If It Matters, and What to Do About It.

The book itself was written by he and business journalist, Laurie Zuckerman. And what troubles me most about the information found within the folds of its pages (besides the nauseating statistics) are the conclusions I've drawn. Those that have crashed and burned my own delusions of creating positive change through promoting health and disease prevention.

You see, I've always believed that education could empower people. And education alone would be enough to both empower and motivate. Yet, Finkelstein, by giving us the hard cold facts, reminds me this is just not so. For if this were the case our obesity population would be decreasing, as would our waistlines. Yet, on the whole, they both continue to increase in size and they are taking our precious health and wellness with them.

Having said this however, I will assume we all know intellectually that being obese can harm our health. Yet, even I couldn't believe the laundry list of diseases linked to obesity. Finkelstein gives them to us one by one. Here's just a few: increased incidence of adult onset diabetes (Type II) (which now, incidentally, has increased in our children as well), increased incidence of pulmonary disease, fatty liver disease, gall bladder disease, osteoarthritis, cancer, heart disease, stroke and ... Dr. Finkelstein can I stop now, please?

More sadness ensues. Not only are we not doing are part to decrease our collective waistline, Finkelstein also makes a case that (not surprisingly) our own economy is at root cause. And what follows is merely a watered down version of Finkelstein's economical case - and may I mention here, the depth of his research are well worth your time, further review and personal discussion.

The fattening economy is based on this simple premise: The cost of non-nutritional food is cheaper. Thus, for the less fortunate, the government subsidies alone are doing nothing to increase health, they are merely providing aid for consumable and non-nutritional goods. Therefore government subsidies are increasing the size of individuals, simply because the cost of eating healthy vegetables and fruits is not an option - and eating expensive organic food is often out of the question.

On the other side of the table, the wealthy of us are getting fat, too. This, because they see no apparent need (or cannot find the motivation) to slim down. A bigger, faster, more generation, we are. And this has the working class far over-working. The larger paycheck comes with the price of longer hours at the office, and less time to focus on health and exercise. It suffers, too, for women as a lack of diet plans for women over 40 are at a premium. Studies also show that the wealthier among us make poorer food choices, eat rich desserts, high fat meats, all as a sign of upper crust living. What's more? Soon, when the side effect of such a lifestyle exerts itself, the benefits of the healthcare system are available to give state of the art medication (without out of pocket costs) to remove the symptoms.

In his book, Finkelstein also gives us both barrels by documenting research in the sad state of affairs that is the health our children and their poor nutritional habits.

Moreover, if you care about the health of yourself, your increased longevity and the health of those you love, begin by losing weight if you need to. First educate yourself with books like Finkelstein and Zuckerman's. Next, discuss your findings with your family. Take the time to review your lifestyle and observe places you can make change. Continue to improve where you need to. And if not for ourselves, then to keep our children from harm's way. Our children will do what we do; let's show them that being healthy is a serious and necessary priority.