Recent data indicates that sixty-one percent of Americans carry an unhealthy amount of weight, a figure which includes obese people who account for twenty-seven percent of the total population. Overweight people are characterized by a body mass index of 25 to 29 while obese people register 30 or higher.
Over a period of thirty years the United States has gone from one of the healthiest nations on earth to one of its fattest. The journalist Greg Cristler investigated this phenomena in his very enjoyable book, "Fat Land: How Americans Became The Fattest People On Earth." The author leaves no stone unturned in his quest for answers. He charts the rise in fry sizes from paper bags to super-sized, the role of loose, baggy clothing and hunger satiation, and the effect suppressed peer-pressure as a result of political correctness. "Fatty, fatty, two by four" can no longer be applied to keep the herd fit and trim.
Much of what Cristler uncovered was already well documented. Who didn't know that fast food portions have increased dramatically over the last thirty years? Who didn't realize that video games contributed to adolescent inactivity? But if he did uncover a smoking gun it was this: corn. That's right, sweet and simple North American maize turned us into a nation of cows.
Richard M. Nixon said he was "not a crook." But before he sent operatives to the Watergate Hotel, he faced a crises which threatened to undo his presidency. A food shortage gripped the nation in 1972 and agriculture secretary Earl "Rusty" Butz responded by freeing farmers from the restrictions of government regulation. They could grow what they wanted to grow and sell when they wanted to sell. Butz recommended corn and soybean. Plant it from "fencerow to fencerow," the fat man advised. Farmers responded and production soared.
As American farmers grew corn out their ears, a Japanese company developed a syrup six times sweeter than cane sugar. This new additive was derived from corn, high-fructose corn sweetener. It was a food industry wind-fall. Its potency meant that sugary food could be produced at considerbly lower cost. Its long shelf-life made it an ideal preservative. Fructose found its way into breads, rolls, etc., products which did not normally contain sugar.
Fructose was a gift for manufacturers but a bane for consumers. Unlike sucrose or dextrose which broke down prior to reaching the liver, fructose arrived at that organ intact. This aspect of fructose became known as "metabolic shunting." It triggered fat storage.
Today fructose in widely available. It is a listed ingrediant in almost all pre-packaged or ready-to-eat food items. By the 1980s fructose was a major ingrediant in all commercial softdrinks, second only to carbonated water. One of the single most important predictors of a child's future girth is his current fructose intake. Soda consumption in children was studied for a period of nineteen months. One extra softdrink a day gave a child a sixty percent greater chance of becoming obese. Each daily soda added .18 points to a child's BMI.
You often see this bumper sticker on the back of a pinko-socialist Volvo wagon: Think globally, act locally. Since I always follow orders issued by bumper stickers, it became necessary for me to do something about the fat pandemic. If a proliferation of high-fructose corn syrup is to blame for this unhealthiness, then there was little that I could do to stem that tide, but I could address the situation locally. I could address my own issue of weight.
After Zachariah Trayshawn Evans stuck a gun in my face, my wife and I moved to the suburbs where I was able to construct a home gym. Aerobic exercise had always been a part of my fitness routine, but I lacked opportunity to pump iron. Weight training is essential for fat metabolizing. In the suburbs I could pump iron.
In short order, fat melted from my body. I lost three inches from my waist and replaced large shirts with medium ones. Weight-training culminated in a large difference on the bathroom scale, almost twenty pounds! In just one year, my weight went from 165 to 184 pounds. According to this BMI Calculator I am now officially OVERWEIGHT! In a land of fat people, I no longer stand-out. Oh happy meat! Oh happy Rabo Karobekian!
