As a fat person, I think sometimes about the obesity crisis we face in America (like, especially when I accidentally see myself naked in the mirror- sooooo gross), and I wonder what happened... we haven't always been a society of great big fat people... there are a lot of theories, and I think that one of the best ones involves the variety of indoor entertainment options that are available today... when I was a kid, we had TV, but it had rabbit ears with tin foil... as for home video game systems, there was the Atari 2600 and Intellivision, both of which pretty much sucked... these days, however, kids have satellite TV, Nintendo, the internet, DVD's, and a whole lot of other pretty good reasons to avoid exercise... when I drive around neighborhoods, I just don't see very many kids playing football in the front yard, or hoops in the driveway, or tackle the man, or anything... so, I think it's fairly obvious that an indoor entertainment revolution has led to less exercise, and that less exercise has contributed to how fat we are as a country...
But you want to know what? I think that a lack of natural foods are the bigger culprit... and if I could pinpoint just one food that I think is killing us, it's corn syrup... corn syrup has been substituted for sugar nearly universally because it is so much less expensive... and if you trace the beginning of the child obesity epidemic, I'll bet you that the expansion of corn syrup and the reduction of cane sugar coincides almost exactly...
So here's my random idea... outlaw corn syrup, and expand the production of corn-based ethanol... this way, you could bring an alternative fuel to the market right away without overly affecting the price of corn because the ethanol will fill the void in corn consumption that the new law creates... of course, sweet foods would become a little more expensive as sugar cane became more prevalent... but if we can help reduce our dependence on foreign oil while simultaneously helping to fight the obesity epidemic, isn't that easily worth it?
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1 comment:
not a bad proposal. I'm on board... I wish you could see my 3 year old - she would much rather be outside swinging and riding her bike than anywhere inside... Aren't you proud. Big hugs
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