|
|
AMERICA IS FAT! As the Masses Grow, So Grows Corporate America R ecently released health statistics paint a bleak picture of the strongest nation on earth. In
spite of quantum tech leaps, a robust economy and a booming
preoccupation with health, Americans are in the grips of a health
epidemic that will surely be recorded in the annals of history alongside
the Black Plague and AIDS. It currently afflicts one in two Americans
and the numbers rise daily. America is losing the battle of the bulge.
Today, 54 percent of America is considered overweight; 20 percent is clinically obese (BMI over 30). According to the dean of American obesity studies, University of Colorado, James 0. Hill, "If obesity is left unchecked, almost all of America will be overweight within a few generations" In fact, already 25 percent of Americans under age 19 are overweight or obese. In 1998, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. David Satcher declared childhood obesity an epidemic. And according to William Dietz, director of nutrition, Centers for Disease Control, the public cost of this epidemic will be hundreds of billions of dollars by 2020, making the economics of AIDS look like chicken feed. Supersize! You wouldn't think anyone is all that worried standing on line at Micky D's- where the battle cry is, "Super-size your order?" Those French fries were never big enough, were they? Well, now you can get a pound of 'em. In fact, if they forget to ask, you get them for free! They sure want that extra 79 cents! And, a value it is, because for that pittance the good folks at McDonalds are going to almost double the caloric intake of your kid's basic cheeseburger, fries and coke, and give him another 660 calories worth of refined sugar and starch. At 1,340 calories, that super-sized meal accounts for more than half of a teenager's recommended daily allowance, according to U.S. dietary guidelines.Great deal? Hardly. Those calories are protein-poor, nutrient-scarce and chock full of things from which added body fat is the result. And it's not just the Golden Arches; virtually every fast food franchise wants to sell extra big everything. Easy access to such fast4at meals comes into a child's life about the same time physical activity among teen boys drops off by about half. Great timing!Where are these kids if not out playing ball? American teens spend an average of 5.5 hours a day in front of some kind of screen. Whether they're watching the Discovery Channel or hacking into a porn site, their butts aren't moving. Fueling this inactivity with carbohydrate-dense, high-fat junk not only makes these kids fat, but the endocrine warfare during this phase of evolution is steadily bolstering the insulin trade; reports of new cases of type II diabetes in children are at an all-time high.The market potential is huge, as evidenced by fast food restaurants popping up at an unprecedented rate, particularly in poor urban areas, where they are convenient stops for moms with five or six hungry mouths to feed. This hitherto untapped market is being aggressively targeted by the big public fast food firms. The suits at work in those glass towers got it right, too, because one out of four hamburgers sold at McDonalds is purchased by a young black male at an inner city store. And, for just 79 cents he can supersize it. Is he coming back? Damn right he is, and he's bringing his friends. Hardest hit seems to be inner city Mexican-American kids. By fourth grade, the obesity rates for girls and boys is 32 and 43 percent, respectively. These kids are not only hugely overweight; they are also beginning to show early signs of what will become a lifetime of obesity-related health problems to further fuel the skyrocketing cost of healthcare. McDonald's' solution? If you have lemons, make lemonade! The company is soon to release a new sandwich with a spicy jalepeno and cheese mayonnaise sauce, about which a spokesperson says, "The last bite will leave you sweating" Let's see... spicy jalepeno sauce... a community that loves spicy food... Perhaps this is why McDonald's' new slogan is, "We like to see you smile." They're referring to shareholders. Poor rural whites have a similar weight problem. A recent study of elementary kids in a low-income eastern Kentucky town found that 33 percent of the children were significantly overweight and 13 percent were obese. Awareness of these patterns of gross corpulence has prompted Eli Lilly & Co., the pharmaceutical giant, to build the largest factory dedicated to the production of a single drug in the history of the industry. Insulin. Market Bonanza Lilly's sales of insulin products totaled $357 million in the third quarter of 1999, a 24 percent increase over the same quarter a year earlier. That's on the order of $1.5 billion in annual sales of just one drug. Almost every leading pharmaceutical manufacturer has a like-minded venture underway to get in on the action with pill-form treatments and easy-to-use injection pens. Pharmaceutical companies not seeking to capture some portion of this burgeoning market are bordering on fiduciary mismanagement, says James Kappel of Eli Lilly. "You've got to be in diabetes" How could the most health-conscious nation on earth preside over such a debacle? How could we let this happen to our kids? The weightiest reason must be that it's profitable. I'm sure there was no deliberate attempt to accrue such a market profile at the expense of children's health. Still, in this corporate tug of war, our nation's underprivileged youth is caught in the middle.
Poor inner city youth is being targeted no differently than middle-America's teens were targeted by the Joe Camel ads pushing the coolness of smoking.They can't walk to school without passing rows of greasy glazed doughnuts at Krispy Kream, or walk home without tripping over a Burger King or a McDonalds. It's on billboards, TV, sides of buses. The message is loud and clear: This is one of few opportunities in their lives to experience some kind of instant gratification for practically nothing. So, today's youth is stout, with no obvious reason to downsize. Check out the fat rappers on MTV proliferating their image of wealth and celebrity wearing big baggy clothes ribbed by miles of Tommy Hilfigger striping. Hey, to the kids it looks cool and a big tent covers a lot of chub. This is ludicrous when you think that in 1956, the President's Council on Physical Fitness implemented broad-based fitness goals for all young people. Ultimately, the council's views on obesity were a harbinger of political suicide. Afterall, they supported such slogans as, "Hey kid, if you see yourself in this picture, you need help" and (from health clubs), "When the aliens land they'll eat the fat ones first." To the rescue came the so-called fat acceptance movement, a very vocal minority. Suddenly, if you got caught making fun of a fat person, you ran the risk of being sat on. By the late '80s, the President's Council had become powerless to motivate our youth to be fit. The sad reality is that even if they were positively motivated to explore a degree of fitness, they don't have much chance. Coolified by MTV and glued to the tube with an acquired taste for deep fried junk, much of our youth is trapped in its corpulence. Future Fat The few who could be enticed to do something physical are extremely limited. Various measures to reduce state spending and taxing, such as California's Proposition 13, have stripped all school-based physical ed classes and limited after-school sports. Currently, only Illinois requires daily physical education for grades K-i 2. The rest go to Mc Donalds to "super-cise." They end up as little engines that push a big economy, as well as prime candidates for obesity-related diseases that require expensive medical care. Meanwhile, chairmen of the big pharmaceutical conglomerates, clothing manufacturers and restaurant chains are looking at these trends and joyously rubbing their collective hands together in anticipation .It's frightening, yet the simple fact remains- the rich want to get richer. In order for that to happen, the poor need to stay fat. The affluent know all that chub will ruin their lives, so they pedal their wares to the urban poor. Think I'm a Marxist? Look, I just break the news, I don't try to fix it. The trend revealed in all the studies done on obesity rates in America is that it afflicts the population's poorest, regardless of race, ethnic background or gender. If you're poor' young and live in the city, it's a 50-50 chance you're obese. When I was in second grade there were 32 kids in my class; only one was overweight. It happened to be me, so I'm quite sure of the statistic. There was just one McDonalds and a Carvel, and they were in the next town.There was no such thing yet as Jack-in-the-Box, and KFC was only in the south. Today's youth is exposed to, and considered valuable consumers in, a very different world. I'm part of a volunteer group that visits inner city schools to promote literacy. In every classroom, at least half the kids are seriously overweight. While in town, I'll occasionally do some people watching. Everywhere I stop, the majority of the people are fat-the store workers, the cashiers, the customers. Their shopping carts are freighted with junk the media tells them to buy- vividly colored packages promising great taste, a short spin in the microwave and a manufacturer's coupon good for the return trip. I see McDonald's, Burger King, Arby's and KFC virtually sharing parking lots on either end of shopping centers and the places are all packed-mostly with fat people. There they are, right in front of me, corporate America's highly-valued consumers. |
