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Now
We are a country of overweight people.
Americans are tipping the scales in record numbers, with approximately
130 million who are presently considered overweight or obese.
Perhaps most alarmingly of all, half of all women aged 20 to
39 in the United States are included in these figures. Many factors
contribute to the growing problem, from our sedentary lifestyles
to our overindulgence in high-energy, low nutritional foods.
Dealing with the crisis is not easy. The marketing of energy
dense foods is a multi-billion dollar industry and manufactures
of such products go to great lengths to ensure their shareholders
continue to profit from the sales of nutrition-less foods.
Despite the barrage of marketing
to the contrary, sales pitches, and misinformation, consumption
of soda has been directly linked to both obesity as well as type
2 diabetes. Soft drinks are packed full of sugar and refined
carbohydrates, both of which are undeniably correlated to these
factors. Type 2 diabetes is also associated with a poor diet
that is laden with high-fructose corn syrup and low in fiber.
Research indicates that soft drinks largely contribute to this
growing epidemic, with high school and college age kids being
the most likely to consume sugar laden soda beverages on a regular
basis.
Sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs)
are bad news, according to health experts, because they contribute
to the obesity epidemic by providing empty calories, that is,
calories that provide little or no nutritional value. Meaning,
a person who slugs down too much soda is swallowing more than
their body can handle. And this added energy isn't healthy energy
-- it's energy derived from high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS),
i.e., highly refined sugar that has been chemically processed
in order to excite your taste buds. It has been argued that too
much HFCS in one's diet may offset the intake of solid food,
yet does not produce a positive caloric balance. In turn, this
over-consumption contributes to the slow development of obesity
because the person is consuming more calories than their body
can burn. And these days, people are drinking more soda than
ever before. Perhaps not surprisingly, as portion sizes for soft
drinks have increased, so have American waistlines.
Too put this dangerous pattern in to perspective, one regular
12-ounce can of sugar-sweetened soda contains approximately 150
calories with close to 50 grams of sugar. If this is added to
the typical American diet, one can of soda per day could lead
to a weight gain of 15 pounds in one year. Currently the consumption
of soda accounts for about 8%-9% of total energy among children
and adults, and studies suggest that it is most certainly having
a negative effect on the people who consume it in such vast quantities.
So what's so wrong with being overweight then, you ask? So what
if soda has been linked to causing obesity? What's wrong with
that? Well, plenty say scores of medical, health and public nutrition
experts.
For starters, obesity increases
the risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, bowel cancer as well
as high blood pressure. Type 2 diabetes alone can contribute
to cardiovascular disease, retinopathy (blindness), neuropathy
(nerve damage), nephropathy (kidney damage), and other health
complications. So if type 2 diabetes is highly associated with
individuals who are obese, and obesity is linked to SSBs, then
type 2 diabetes is highly associated with the consumption of
SSBs because the consumption of SSBs is so highly associated
with causing obesity. In short, if one consumes SSBs on a regular
basis, they are more at risk of developing type 2 diabetes, which
itself may cause many ailments. That's why being overweight is
not a good thing for one's health. And that's why drinking copious
amounts of sugar-sweetened beverages contributes to poor wellbeing
byway of obesity and type 2 diabetes.
On top of causing one to gain
unhealthy weight and spurring type 2 diabetes, SSBs may also
contribute to the loss of bone density, which may cause one to
be more susceptible to bone fractures. It has been argued that
low bone density may be a result of high levels of phosphate,
which is found in elevated amounts in sugar-sweetened cola. Such
large amounts of phosphate may alter the calcium-phosphorus ratio
in people whose bodies are still developing, or people who are
most likely to consume SSBs, and consequently this can have a
toxic effect on their bone development. If a growing individual
has a low calcium intake it could jeopardize bone mass, which
may then contribute to hip fractures and other bone related disorders
later in life. Drinking a lot of SSBs while your body develops
could have lasting, deadly effects on your health. So while it
is clear that soda isn't good for you, it is also obvious
that soda is downright bad for your health. It can make
you overweight, suck the calcium out of your bones, and increase
risk of type 2 diabetes, a leading cause of blindness. But that's
not the kind of news the profiteers of big soda would ever want
you to hear.
The marketing firms that barrage
consumers with ads for their mouth-watering soft drinks hope
to encourage you to drink more of their harmful products, not
less of them. Indeed they have a financial incentive to do so.
Their annual revenues are billions of dollars. To protect their
interests, as Prof. Marion Nestle of NYU notes, the soda industry
shells out tons of money to convince people to consume their
products in mass quantities. In the late 1990s, Coca-Cola spent
about $1.6 billion dollars in global marketing, with over $850
million spent in the United States alone. With that kind of lavish
spending, it is little wonder why Coca-Cola is such a household
name. Clearly, those who advocate for cutting down on the consumption
of SSBs because of their negative health impacts are up against
a very well financed opposition -- not unlike the anti-smoking
activists who take on the shenanigans and deceit of Big Tobacco.
Nevertheless, Coca-Cola, like
its competitors, is extremely savvy. They have inundated schools
with their products. As Michele Simon, the author of Appetite
for Profit, writes, "A 2003 government survey showed
that 43 percent of elementary schools, 74 percent of middle schools,
and 98 percent of high schools sold food through vending machines,
snack bars, or other venues outside the federally supported school
meal programs ... With public schools so desperate for funding,
districts are lured into signing exclusive contracts (also known
as "pouring rights" deals) with major beverage companies
-- mainly Coca-Cola and PepsiCo".
In other words, these multinational
corporations give millions of dollars to schools so that their
districts and vending machines exclusively carry their goods.
In reality, however, it comes down to one big clever marketing
ploy: In the end these big corporations have hooked kids on their
products while fooling people into believing they are virtuous
corporate citizens because they support education.
Fortunately there is a growing
movement across the country to ban sodas from schools. Indeed
the feisty Killer Coke campaign, which focuses on the company's
labor abuses and not Coke's negative health implications, has
been successful is banning the product from over 10 major universities
in the US. But it would be wise to not just focus on the company's
alleged murders in Colombia, and instead broaden the struggle
against the soda industry by pointing out their complicity in
the obesity epidemic worldwide.
Because death truly is the
"real thing".
Joshua Frank is the author of Left Out! How Liberals
Helped Reelect George W. Bush and edits http://www.BrickBurner.org
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