A Recognized Consciousness
By Dean L. Jones
The First Lady Michelle Obama bestowed upon the American landscape an improved health consciousness with the ‘Let’s Move!’ program and many folks have embraced it as part of their daily routine. This is a tremendous initiative that even prompted public health professionals to be more active in promoting straight forward messages about basic eating patterns.
First Lady Obama got our country’s governmental food agencies to update their approach to the epidemic of overweight and obesity. Her work pushed the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to offer an online Internet tool that consumers can now use to personalize and manage their dietary and physical activity choices. The “MyPlate” icon serves to offer recommendations on eating more vegetables and fruit, balanced by grains and protein, while the dairy food group is presented as an add-on choice to each meal.
The USDA now encourages American consumers to avoid sugary drinks all together. First Lady Obama’s work pushed the government to make a dietary overhaul on daily eating practices of avoiding and/or reducing foods with high sodium (salt) like soup, bread, and prepackaged frozen meals. The government now reports how processed sugar is harmful to human health, where before providers of fats, sugars and alcohol products was a governmentally guarded subject.
I fondly remember a little soulful dance that was dubbed the ‘Fat Man’, where in the early 1960’s we would stick out our mid-sections and roll toward our partners to the beat of the music in a synchronized style. In contrast, that was nearly 50 years ago when maybe just one person in the average neighborhood house party was obese, as no one then seemed to care about mocking obesity. To dance that same way now would be somewhat boring since the majority of people are already seen as a fat man (woman).
One thing to bear in mind is that obese means massively overweight, which excludes moderate and low overweight people. Roughly 75% of blacks in America are either overweight or obese, which coincides with how the U.S. ranks as the third fattest country in the world, beat out only by Kiribati, a Pacific nation with an 81.5% overweight and obesity rate, and American Samoa at a 94% overweight population.
Consuming processed sugar can cause heart disease, a weakened immune system, hypertension, diabetes, and a number of other related health problems. One area that is rarely talked about is how eating too much processed sugar and high fructose corn syrup causes increased uric acid levels, which is intricately linked to obesity, Gout, Fatty Liver, Gastro Esophageal Reflux, Kidney and Gallbladder disease, Depression, Blood Clots, Sleep Apnea, High Cholesterol, Coronary Artery disease, Stroke, Osteoarthritis, Dementia and associated health problems like high blood pressure, and numerous cancers.
Accordingly, you may want to think twice about celebrating with a sugary ice crème cake on Fathers’ Day, in helping dad to live SugarAlert!
Since 2007, Dean steadfastly shares his understanding on the dangers of eating processed sugar. ���֘
