The Weight of the Nation

The Weight of the Nation http://theweightofthenation.hbo.com/films

For our community day on January 17 we watched this four part documentary about the obesity epidemic in the US. It was very informative. Right now 1/3 of the US population is obese, 1/3 is overweight. The short and long of it is, being obese or overweight puts stress on everything else in your body. Excess fat accumulates around your organs and makes them work harder, it can shut down liver and kidney function, and increase risk of just about anything, diabetes, cancer, heart attack, high cholesterol, stroke, high blood pressure, arthritis from the extra strain on your joints...

Anything else that is bad or can kill you comes much faster due to obesity.

As the film worded it, these are adult problems, heart disease, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, etc., but more and more studies are showing these problems are developing in the children. Some cases shown in the video were middle schoolers, one girl was only 7 years old and showing these signs. Research was showing early signs in kids in Kindergarten! Unhealthy diets mostly just corn, corn syrup, soy, wheat, potato, and meat give Americans excess fat reserves and are leading to obesity much younger, and to more people than ever before.

PE is optional in schools in all but 5 states.  What’s up with that? Nature Camp does 3 rec. periods every day because the kids won’t sit still.  How do we keep them sitting still in math class without PE? And school lunches have the nutrients of, well, school lunches. Many communities don't have access to parks or healthy foods. Kids aren't outside so much for various reasons. Kids born today will live shorter, and be sicker in their life than their parents. The film said that several times. I'll say that again, kids born today WILL die before their parents.

It is a problem for all of us. Sometimes we have to talk money to get policy to move, so listen: Our tax dollars will see and are seeing increases in Medicare/Medicaid as obesity causes further expensive health problems. Employers will see and have already seen increased healthcare costs for their employees who are overweight. Solution:  A construction company in the film saved $600,000 a year by doing health testing and blood work for their employees and encouraging healthy wellness behavior rather than just paying for healthcare! This also led to fewer sick days from their employees and fewer healthcare coverage claims.  Healthy workers=successful business!

The film outlined all the typical culprits you see in the food movement videos: fast food, subsidies on corn, breakfast cereal marketing, sodas, sugary drinks (which includes most fruit juices). Speaking of sugary drinks, grape juice has the same content of sugar as soda, and stuff like PowerAde can be sold in schools to young kids but isn't anything but sugar water.

My favorite fact from the film:  Sugar-sweetened drinks (ie anything you can buy at the fridge in a gas station) have no nutritional value at all even the orange juice. They squeeze out the sugar and throw away the pulp where all the nutrients are. You'll get so much more vitamin C eating the whole orange, or even a bell pepper than drinking that pulp-free sugar water we call minute maid. Look at the ingredients. It's just soda without the bubbles. These drinks have a 90% profit margin for coke and Pepsi, and 0% of your nutritional need. Who wins there I ask?  You just lost $1.69! These non-soda drinks are nothing but diabetes and obesity in a can, and they get all the success of marketing toward school age kids who don't need anywhere close to that much sugar because kids aren't exercising as much today.

We set them up for failure. We set them up for obesity. We set kids up for a life shorter than ours.

I was inspired by all the talk of personal change stories from the second video, and the things communities are doing from the 4th video. The things people did when they resolved they didn't want to be obese any more. It is that spark of change that has to generate inside someone to get them started, and then all the group exercise and therapy people used to hold each other accountable to keep off the weight.

The story is that we can solve this problem, and paying a little more for healthier foods now and committing to exercise is much cheaper than getting the liver surgery, or the bypass surgery or the autopsy from it later down the line. We can solve these problems and we will when we realize life (in biology terms) is a battle with death and we have to make the decision to get up each day and live each day, and not just sit around all the time.

Personal changes in diet and exercise are the best individual start, but we must also build a society that teaches and encourages healthy living, exercise, and fighting disease. Not one based on money and profit margins.

Change is coming, be the change you wish to see in the world. It is your life. Live it.