Sugar Alert – The Fat Man
By Dean L. Jones, C.P.M.
When I was about twelve years old, there was a little dance that was dubbed the ‘Fat Man’, where we would stick out our mid-sections and roll toward our partners to the beat of the music in a synchronized soulful style. In contrast, that was 40 something years ago when maybe just one person in a party of many was fat and no one seemed to care about mocking obesity. Today, to dance that same way would be boring since the majority of people are already overweight.
Ironically, there really does not seem to be a communal fight against obesity as our country in 2009 reported unprecedented levels topping 30%, reaching nearly a third of people in nine states as obese. In 2007, it was only three states, meaning that 2.4 million more people became obese from 2007 to 2009, bringing the U.S. ‘fat man’ total to 72.5 million, or 26.7% of the population.
One thing to bear in mind is that obese means massively overweight, which excludes moderate and low overweight people, giving rise to just how bad this situation has become. Nearly 80% of blacks in America are either overweight or obese with no signs of turning this ill-fated trend downward in the foreseeable future. Not surprising, the U.S. is currently the third fattest country in the world, beat out only by Kiribati, a Pacific nation with an 81.5% overweight and obesity rate, and American Samoa at a 94% overweight population.
A lack of exercise, emotional stress, lack of sleep and even the wrong bacteria in the digestive track can all contribute to obesity. However, obesity can be arrested with avoiding the consumption of refined sugar and high fructose corn syrup. Refined sugar is a chemical, but since it is processed from sugar cane or beet plants everyone wants to believe that it could not be all that bad. However, it is dreadful and my personal testimony of once being a heavy sugar user to a controlled sugarless daily diet eater can swear that positive weight lost is just one of the many healthy turnarounds derived by abstaining from sugar.
Besides knowing about the tremendous amount of pounds eating refined sugar places on the body, consuming this substance contained in products can cause heart disease, weakened immune system, hypertension, diabetes, and a number of other related health problems. One area that is rarely talked about is how eating refined sugar and high fructose corn syrup causes increased uric acid levels, which is intricately linked to obesity, Gout, Fatty Liver, Gastro Esophageal Reflux, Kidney and Gallbladder disease, Depression, Blood Clots, Sleep Apnea, High Cholesterol, Coronary Artery disease, Stroke, Osteoarthritis, Dementia and associated health problems like high blood pressure, and numerous cancers.
Dean L. Jones is a marketing strategist with the Southland Partnership Corporation, a public benefit organization. He has published a series of articles prompted by his discomfort with how food/beverages are marketed to the community.