The collapse of our food and health care system

The American Medical Association has just recently classified obesity as a disease which in my opinion is a big mistake. By doing this we now take the focus off our broken down food system as well as personal responsibility. This will lead to more people buying diet pills, using prescription drugs and surgical intervention for weight loss. Essentially more money for corporations that profit on us being fat and sick.

Let’s go back to the 1930’s when twenty-four percent of our income was spent on food which is quite a considerable amount but during that time obesity was pretty much unheard of. During this time people ate for nourishment knowing that there were no pills to bail us out from living an unhealthy lifestyle. Even in the sixties health care was only four percent of GDP but this is when things started to change. Today health care is at eighteen percent of GDP and expected to rise to thirty-four percent by 2040. The reality is thirty-six percent of American adults and twenty percent of American children are now obese. We have completely outsourced our eating to corporations who can care less about our health and well being. Our vegetables travel an average of 1400 miles before it reaches a plate and eighty percent of all antibiotics used are for the farming industry. All of our food is engineered from corn of which eighty-five percent of it is being genetically modified .You may have heard about genetically modified organisms (GMO) in the news. GMO are organisms whose genetic material has been changed/modified. For example Biotech companies found away to get into corn with cell invasion technology to modify it to be resistant to pests, herbicides or harsh environments. Lets discuss an example of how they make GMO resistant to pests. The Biotech company tampers with the corn DNA by inserting bacteria called BT (Bacillus thuringiensi) and by nature resists the root worm one of the biggest enemies to corn. The worm would then eat the corn and it would die, thus protecting the crop. Make no mistake genetically modified food is a benefit to the food producer to maximize their profits, lower their expenses and take more market control.

People have started to demand to know what is really in their food and this is why the emergence of organic foods has become so popular. Organic farms per square acre are actually more profitable than monoculture farms because the farmers themselves actually work the land rather than just working it once a year for example during corn season. They will work different crops year round building the biodiversity of the soil which is where all the nutrition comes from. We have to get back in the kitchen and start learning to cook. Those who eat food cooked/grown by humans are healthier than people who eat food made by corporations.

Pills are not the solution to obesity. According to the American Medical Association, 290 people in the United States are killed by prescription drugs every day. Even if prescription drugs do not literally kill a patient they also have many side effects which can harm the body. Coincidence that two new prescription weight loss drugs have recently been released, and two obesity vaccines are in development. The relationship between pharmaceutical companies and corporations is downright frightening since they only care about one thing, getting you addicted to their products to gain a profit. Remember there is no such thing as cheap food it will be charged to your health and eventually paid for by you, the environment and in the public in the form of farm subsidies.

Sources:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/cea/TheEconomicCaseforHealthCareReform

http://www.staysmartstayhealthy.com/health_care_history_inthe_united_states