Killing us softly

Julia Havey has a blog, and the mission statement of the blog (note to self: come up with a mission statement) is "To bring about a decline in the obesity epidemic and empower people to improve their lives."

Here is a recent entry by Julia about Coke and McDonald's.

MSNBC: Americans are living longer than ever, but not as long as people in 41 other countries.
For decades, the United States has been slipping in international rankings of life expectancy, as other countries improve health care, nutrition and lifestyles.
Countries that surpass the U.S. include Japan and most of Europe, as well as Jordan, Guam and the Cayman Islands.
“Something’s wrong here when one of the richest countries in the world, the one that spends the most on health care, is not able to keep up with other countries,” said Dr. Christopher Murray, head of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.
Many factors
Researchers said several factors have contributed to the United States falling behind other industrialized nations. A major one is that 45 million Americans lack health insurance, while Canada and many European countries have universal health care, they say.
But “it’s not as simple as saying we don’t have national health insurance,” said Sam Harper, an epidemiologist at McGill University in Montreal. “It’s not that easy.”

Among the other factors:
Adults in the United States have one of the highest obesity rates in the world. Nearly a third of U.S. adults 20 years and older are obese, while about two-thirds are overweight, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.
“The U.S. has the resources that allow people to get fat and lazy,” said Paul Terry, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Emory University in Atlanta. “We have the luxury of choosing a bad lifestyle as opposed to having one imposed on us by hard times.------
The problem is huge and the solution is so simple yet we seem to keep our heads buried in the sand. What do I mean? Recently the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation burned through money to do a study on how to make us live longer only to advise us on getting flu shots, taking aspirin daily and checking for chlamydia! While those are certainly valid health tips, I was amazed that their study totally ignored the Obesity Pandemic, the biggest reason that we are the dying sooner than other humans around the world!
The Vice Busting Diet is the only "diet" book with the integrity to tell the truth and tell the reader that if they want to live healthfully and longer--they can't eat McDonald's and drink Coca-Cola and continue to lay on the couch hour upon hour watching TV at the expense of getting some physical activity!
We wonder why we are so fat and lazy? A recent study showed children prefered carrots out of a McDonald's bag rather than a generic carrot despite the fact that both carrots were exactly the same shape, size and taste! They have been brainwashed by this generation's Hilter--Ronald McDonald! Shocking statement? Not if you think about it. I think when it is said and done more lives will have been lost to McDonald's fat genocide than Hilter's murderous regime. I realize this is a stretch, but if we found out that Ronald McDonald hated fat people and was purposefully feeding them poisonous toxic food that would make them morbidly obese, contract illness and disease and die prematurely--we would be outraged.
The only difference is, he doesn't 'hate' them, but make no mistake about it, he is killing millions of human beings one bite at a time.
And you think the execs at Coca-Cola are any better? They come up with every way imaginable to have us suck down their sugar laced Coke or aspartame punch. They make it readily available in soft drink machines everywhere! They know that what they serve is unhealthy, they have the ability to make a great deal of money selling us bottled water yet they continue to push their poison despite the fact people drink enough of it to get big and fat. Do you think they care about your bottom line or theirs?
If we stopped eating fast food; McDonald's, Wendy's, Chick Filet, etc., stopped drinking soft drinks; Coke, diet Coke, Pepsi, Gatorade, Monster, etc and got up off the couch it is guaranteed that we would live longer and healthier lives.
Guaranteed.
Keep eating that crap, keep drinking the crap--keep feeling like crap and die young. Guaranteed


TK: Julia is bringing it strong..."They have been brainwashed by this generation's Hitler--Ronald McDonald!" As a frequent customer of the double cheeseburger, Julia goes too far for me. Wouldn't it be better to sell more produce through McDonald's than to vilify them? While we would all be better off if we drank orange juice and had carrot sticks instead of Coke and McDonald's, Julia's call for total abstinence of all quick serve restaurants casts her on the far fringe of foodies. Yet her message does resonate with a part of the public that is truly sick of their unbalanced eating habits and overweight bodies and want a scapegoat as a catalyst to change.