globesity and health care: 5 little known secrets of why we are fat and miserable

8/9/2019 Globesity and Health Care: 5 Little Known Secrets of Why We Are Fat and Miserable

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Globesity and Health Care: 5 Little Known Secrets of WhyWe Are Fat and Miserable

Jed Diamond, Ph.D. has been a marriage and family counselor for the last 45years. He is the author of 8 books, including Looking for Love in All the WrongPlaces, Male Menopause, The Irritable Male Syndrome, and Mr. Mean: SavingYour Relationship from the Irritable Male Syndrome (May, 2010). He offerscounseling to men, women, and couples in his office in California or by phonewith people throughout the U.S. and around the world. To receive a Free E-bookon Mens Health and a free subscription to Jeds e-newsletter go towww.MenAlive.com. If you are looking for an expert counselor to help withrelationship issues, write [email protected].

While we listen to endless debate about health-care in America, the real

cause of our ill health goes unrecognized. My doctorate is in international health,but you dont need a PhD to understand some simple facts. As long as we live ina society that believes that profits are more important than people we willcontinue to sicken and die. It is much more profitable for big business to create aculture of sickness than it is to create one focused on wellness.

Having a decent health-care plan might improve our health by 5 or 10%.Changing the system that promotes obesity could improve our health by 60 or75%. Here are some facts you should know.

1. Most enlightened countries find a way to pay for health care.

As T.R. Reid, author ofThe Healing of America: A Global Quest forBetter, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care reminds us, most countries find a wayto pay for the health care of its citizens. In travelling throughout the world helearned that almost all countries use one of four health-care models: Germany'sBismarck system, in which hospitals and insurers are private entities andfinancing comes from payroll deductions; Britain's Beveridge Model, with thegovernment providing health care financed by taxes; the Canadian plan, whereprivate doctors and hospitals are paid by the government through taxes; and theout-of-pocket care found in most poor nations, where those who can afford careget it, while the rest suffer or die.

Unlike any other country, the U.S. combines all four models. Theemployer-based coverage most workers get follows the Bismarck Model.Veterans and soldiers are treated under the Beveridge Model (whichconservatives often call socialized medicine). Medicare is so similar to Canada'ssystem that they share the name. And the 47 million uninsured do asCambodians do.
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Reid interviewed doctors, politicians, patients, and experts in eachcountry he visited. Everyone had gripes, and all the systems he examined werestruggling with rising costs. But countries with universal coverage differ from theU.S. in a striking waythey accept that everyone has a right to medical careand, out of fairness, one system should apply to all. America must ask itself, Reid

writes: "Should society guarantee health care the way we guarantee the right tothink and pray as you like, to get an education, to vote in free elections? Or ismedicine a commodity to be bought and sold?"

Health care and food care are intimately related. We cant get healthy ina system set up to make big profits on being sure we are stuffed, starved, and illinformed.

2. Regardless of how we decide to pay for health care, real health comesfrom what and how we eat.

In his book Stuffed & Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World FoodSystem, author Raj Patel says, Today, when we produce more food than everbefore, more than one in ten people on Earth are hungry. The hunger of 800million happens at the same time as another historical first: that they areoutnumbered by the one billion people on this planet who are overweight.

He goes on to say that the reason the world is both starved and stuffedis social rather than personal. Global hunger and obesity, he says, aresymptoms of the same problem, and whats more, the route to eradicating worldhunger is also the way to prevent global epidemics of diabetes and heartdisease, and to address a host of environmental and social ills.

2. Big profits are made getting us to go from blue to red.

The Center for Disease Control has a color coded map showing ourincreasing obesity levels.


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Percent of Obese (BMI > 30) in U.S. Adults

Percent of Obese (BMI > 30) in U.S. Adults

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3. The non-white population is particularly vulnerable.

White Non-Hispanic

Hispanic


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Black Non-Hispanic

4. Diabetes and Obesity go together.

County-Specific Diabetes and Obesity Prevalence, 2007

Wide sections of the Southeast, Appalachia, and some tribal lands in the West

and Northern Plains have the nation's highest rates of obesity and diabetes. Inmany counties in those regions, rates of diagnosed diabetes exceed 10 percentand obesity prevalence is more than 30 percent.

Eighty-one percent of counties in the Appalachian region that includes Kentucky,Tennessee, and West Virginia have high rates of diabetes and obesity. So dothree-quarters of counties in the southern region that includes Alabama, Georgia,Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina.


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Obesity


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Diabetes

5. Were fattening our kids for the kill.

Rates of obesity have tripled among kids ages 12 to 19 since 1980, with onethird of Americas youth now overweight or obese and almost 10 percentof infants and toddlers dangerously heavy.

If current trends continue, nearly one in three kids born in 2000one in twominoritieswill develop type 2 diabetes in their lifetime. The disease islinked to hear attack, stroke, blindness, amputation, and kidney disease.Is this what we want for our children?

Solutions Are 90% Social and 10% Personal.

Most people do everything they can to lose weight. Each year we makeresolutions to get fit and lost weight. We are successful for a short time,but then the weight of the world comes down us and we are back wherewe started.


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Dr. David Kessler, the former head of the FDA, argues that the fattening ofAmerica has happened by design as food companies intentionallymanufactured irresistible cocktails of sugar, fat, and salt. We wouldntallow drug pushers to sell drugs to our children, why do we continue toallow food pushers to addict our kids?

According to Kelly Brownell of Yales Rudd Center for Food Policy andObesity, The country defaults to giving industry the benefit of the doubt.Industry says you dont need to regulate us; well police ourselves. Thetobacco industry abused that with God knows how many lives as aconsequence. To expect the food industry to be different may be wishfulthinking.

Its helpful to remind ourselves that the food industry and the cigarette andalcohol industry are really one in the same. Most people have heard ofthe cigarette company Philip Morris. It is now part of the benign sounding

company called Altria. Among their brands are the following:

Ste. Michelle Wine EstatesMiller brewing companyKraft foods (includes Oscar Meyer hotdogs, Philadelphia cream cheese, Maxwell

House coffee, Nabisco, and Oreo).

You can bet that they will use the same kind of promotions that have beeneffective in getting people hooked on tobacco and alcohol to get us addicted totheir food products.

We can eliminate a lot of the problem if we buy real food made as close tohome as possible. You wont find Big Food at your local Farmers market or inyour back yard garden.

Drop me a note. I look forward to hearing from you.

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Obesity and Diabetes

By Jed Diamond, Ph.D

For more information Contact: [email protected] orwww.MenAlive.com

Oprah is mad as hell and she isnt going to take it anymore. Once again she lost a

bunch of weight, looked good, and felt great. And once again she put on a bunch ofweight, looked fat, and felt awful. Shes certainly not alone. Studies show that in our

lifetime 7 and of 10 women and 9 out of 10 men will become overweight. Weve all

been on the latest diet, taken off some poundage and promptly put it back on again. But

if Oprah, with all her high-tech trainers cant keep the weight off, what hope is there forus?

I was watching Larry King the other night as Oprahs personal dream team ofexperts talked about the courage Oprah has shown in being open about her weight gain

and frustration that weight is still an issue for her. We heard from her personal trainer,

Bob Greene. We heard from her personal physician, Dr. Mehmet Oz. We heard from her
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personal spiritual advisor Michael Bernard Beckwith. All three are absolutely tops in

their field. If this team cant help Oprah keep her weight under control, two conclusions

seem logical.

First, weight-gain is inevitable and we should stop trying to lose weight and accept the

fact that were all destined to become fat.

Second, the dream team is missing the real reason Oprah, you, and I keep getting fat in

spite of all we do to lose weight.

Im convinced that the second conclusion is the right one. The key to understanding

whats been missing is to take a closer look at the approach that Oprah, you, and I have

been taking to weight gain and weight loss. We all believe the problem is personal.Since Oprah can afford the best help money can buy, she is able to hire the best

personal physician, the best personal trainer, and the best personal spiritual

advisor. For those of us on a more limited budget we settle for the latest personal diet

program.

But what if the real problem we face is social not personal? What if all ourpersonal efforts will be for naught, without a change in our social understanding of food?

What if the missing person on the dream team is a London born economist who worked

at the World Bank, the World Trade Organization, and the United Nations? His name is

Raj Patel.

I first met Raj in Mendocino, California when he was on tour for his book, Stuffed &

Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System. Though he started out as a card-carrying member of the corporate-dominated economic system, he has since become an

outspoken and noted critic of all of these organizations, and has been tear gassed on four

continents protesting against his former employers.

Patel believes that the reason we are overweight has less to do with our personal

practices as it has to do with corporate practices. And theres something we can do aboutit. Heres how he begins his book:

Today, when we produce more food than ever before, more than one in ten people on

Earth are hungry. The hunger of 800 million happens at the same time as anotherhistorical first: that they are outnumbered by the one billion people on this planet who

are overweight.

He goes on to say that the reason the world is both starved and stuffed is social

rather than personal. Global hunger and obesity, he says, are symptoms of the same

problem, and whats more, the route to eradicating world hunger is also the way toprevent global epidemics of diabetes and heart disease, and to address a host of

environmental and social ills.


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If youd like to learn more about the real reasons Oprah, you, me, and 1 billion others

are getting fat, I suggest you check out Raj Patel at www.rajpatel.orgor

www.StuffedAndStarved.org.

To receive my free e-newsletter please visit me at www.MenAlive.com

Your comments are appreciated.

Contact: [email protected] www.MenAlive.com
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