News Flash Reveals US Government Responsible for Obesity Epidemic

Does “political correctness” promote fatness?

Only ten years ago, the average American woman’s waist was nearly two inches smaller than today’s.

The average 18-year-old today is 15 pounds heavier than an 18-year-old in the late 1970s. Adults have put on even more weight during that period. The average woman in her 60s is 20 pounds heavier than the average 60-something woman in the late 1970s. The average man in his 60s is 25 pounds heavier.

Is it because we are getting lazier? Maybe prosperity is doing it to us?

No, This is why you’re fat…

The article blows the lid off a massive government boondoggle.

You’d think a salad would cost much less than a Big Mac, right? After all, how expensive could it be to produce a salad? You plant a few seeds, let mother nature run her course, bend over in a couple of months to pick your ingredients, and there you have it.

Now for the Big Mac.

• You plant corn. Let Mother Nature run her course. Harvest the corn in a few months. Then you feed it to a cow. You keep doing this until the cow grows real big. (But, first you have to buy the cow or at least own the cow’s parents.)
• Then you slaughter the cow. Throw away the stuff you don’t want. Then grind up the meat.
• Meanwhile, you grow a bunch of wheat. Harvest your crop. Mill the wheat. Make dough. Then you bake it until you have hamburger buns.
• During this process, you milk a dairy cow. Go through a 21-step procedure. You end up with cheese.

Wow. That’s a lot of work for a burger, isn’t it? It involves all those moving parts, all the labor, and all the resources and time. So, obviously, the Big Mac cost more than the salad.

Not so fast, Speedo. We didn’t factor in the insanity of government intervention.

When you look at federal subsidies for food production, here’s what you find:

• Meat/Dairy = 73.8%
• Grains = 13.2%
• Sugar/Oil/Starch/Alcohol = 10.7%
• Nuts/Legumes = 1.9%
• Fruits and Vegetables = 0.4%

97.7% government subsidies for foods that make you sick vs. 1.9% for nuts and legumes, and a pathetic 0.4% for the healthiest foods.

So, now you see that contrary to logic that a salad costs you more than a Big Mac.

It’s a classic case of contradictory government policy. The numbers clearly show the inverse relationship between federal government agriculture subsidies and federal nutrition recommendations.

The Farm Bill governs what children are fed in schools and what food assistance programs can distribute to recipients. The bill provides billions of dollars in subsidies, much of which goes to huge agribusinesses producing feed crops, such as corn and soy, which are then fed to animals. By funding these crops, the government intervention supports the production of meat and dairy products; the same products that contribute to our growing rates of obesity and chronic disease. Fruit and vegetable farmers, on the other hand, receive less than one half of one percent of government subsidies.

The government intervention also purchases surplus foods like cheese, milk, pork and beef to distribute to food assistance programs, including school lunches. They are not required to purchase nutritious foods.

(Despite an early pledge to cut Big Ag subsidies, Obama caved in to the power of the agribusiness industry and reversed this plan.)

And then there’s this: Adjusted for inflation, the price of fruits and vegetables has increased over 40% in the past 30 years. Meanwhile, everything else, including meat, beer, and especially soda, has decreased.

Imagine how many more people would be alive and how much obesity and sickness we’d avoid if fruit and vegetable farms were subsidized at the same rates as meat and dairy operations.

Better yet, let’s just get the government out of subsidies altogether, and let the markets and your health find their natural levels.

P.S. Over 300,000 Americans die from obesity each year.

by Jeff Nield (Treehugger.com), for MaxLife Foundation