Lots of people and lots of organizations talk about the
importance of good health these days, but there’s a world of difference between
words and actions. The ‘importance of
diet and fitness’ make great sound bites, but there is so much misleading
advertising and so many mistruths in what is being said.
First of all, take a look around and see the overweight
people in the western world in 2010. Clearly, more than 50% of adults are
overweight and about 20% are obese according to Stats Canada. Child obesity has become a major issue now
and with it a growing list of medical problems including diabetes and autism
that have been related to poor nutrition.
Everyone agrees that these problems exist, but why are they
are a problem today, and what needs to be done to correct them? Check out some
old high school yearbooks from the 1960’s and 1970’s and you see very few
overweight students, maybe less than 10%. So what has happened in society?
Let’s talk about the fast food industry that did not exist
in its present form 40 years ago.
McDonalds, Tim Horton’s, Pizza Hut, Burger King, Subway and many others
were not around. If our society really
wanted to ‘eat healthy’, people would stop eating prepared fast foods, which
contain huge amounts of: fat, sugar,
salt, MSG, white flour and preservatives that provide temporary relief from
hunger but which are toxic to the body.
This information should not come as a revelation to you.
Don’t ever think that the big, fast food ‘corporations’ are concerned about
your health. They are not. They may react to bad publicity like the movie about
McDonalds’ food called ‘Supersize Me’
by printing out nutritional pamphlets which only tell you part of the story. If
you really want to see how the food chain is controlled rent the movie, “Food
Inc” one night and you won’t believe what you are seeing.
Do you know who controls the beef industry in the United States? According to “Food Inc” it is McDonalds because they use so much beef they
actually control the way it is produced- in slaughterhouses so vile that some
people actually stop eating meat after they have watched the film. That means
that the meat we buy in our grocery stores could be off the same assembly line
as McDonalds’ hamburgers. That should give us pause.
But government will always come to our rescue, right? Just
like the Ontario Liberals did before Christmas when they promised us the HST in
2010, so now we’ll be paying 13% tax on just about everything…but…not on fast
food because according to McGuinty, the government did not want “to deprive
busy, working people the opportunity to buy fast food on their way home.”
Right, I wonder how hard the fast food companies had to lobby for that tax
exemption!
Moreover, this is the direct opposite to the direction that
the Liberal government should be taking. The Liberal government is reinforcing
the idea to the public, that fast food is fine and necessary and should not be
taxed. Therefore, people will continue to buy it, perhaps even more frequently
because of the tax savings.
This kind of thinking is like a small plane going into a
spiral dive. The chances of recovery become less and less the longer the plane
remains in the spiral.
So it is with fast food, prepared food, sweet food, soft
drinks, and increasingly much of the food in supermarkets. It is full of the
wrong ingredients and lacks proper nutrition. The body can withstand it for a
while, but the food eventually makes people fat, overweight and in some cases,
obese.
That’s just for starters. Then the body, because it is being
denied the proper nutrients, becomes weaker, and the immune system caves in to
illness and disease. So many of the illnesses that exist today are due to poor
nutrition, and some illnesses like autism, can apparently be reversed by
changing one’s eating habits.
I am not claiming to be a nutritional expert, so for much
more specific information on the subject I would recommend that you visit http://www.whathappenedtohealth.blogspot.com/,
an excellent website hosted by a Cornwall fitness and nutritional guru, Jason
Christoff. Jason adds a new article to his site almost every day, and answers
questions regarding his topics.
In summary, what has really happened in the last 40 years is
that the food and drink corporations have become so big and powerful, that they
exert total control over some of us. Adults and children are watching 3 and 4
hours of television every day, and are being inundated with commercials
promoting food that is really just garbage for the body.
We all enjoyed the Canadian effort at the Olympics, the
excitement and most of all, the excellence of the athletes. We know that all of
these athletes were on specialized programs, carefully controlled diets and
fitness regimes and were at the top of their game.
But look at the major sponsors of the Olympics: Wonder
Bread, Coca Cola and McDonald’s!
Basically, the advertisers are suggesting that we, the audience, need to
purchase these products so we can find ‘excellence’ and a ‘healthy’
lifestyle. It’s almost laughable if it
wasn’t so tragic.
I wonder how many of those Olympians had fast food on their
diets in the lead-up to the 2010 games.
We are being duped by the food companies. They are killing
us. It is time to wake up, kiss fast food goodbye and get on with our lives.
