You are what you eat. This truism is deserving of much more attention than it gets. People use it to joke, but the reality is that what you choose to eat will have a direct effect on practically all areas of your life - and your death. Obesity is the largest health concern in our society. An astounding 50% of deaths in America come as the result of cardiovascular disease, whose two biggest contributors are obesity and smoking. Let's look at the two top-selling drugs of 2008: Lipitor, used to control cholesterol. Nexium, a stomach acid regulator.

It's not hard to see that the food choices these people are making are the direct cause of their ailments. Have you ever eaten a big platter of greasy, fried potato skins covered in cheddar cheese and topped with whole sour cream only to curse yourself as you felt your innards set ablaze? When the body is subjected to abuse for long enough it develops chronic conditions. It's almost as if the body knows what's coming, and has resigned itself to fate. Or for a better analogy, when you piss in your gas tank enough your car will break down. People have been urinating in their tanks far too much too long.

Let's take a step back

Humans have been walking the earth in the current model for about 150,000 years. Most of our DNA is between 40,000 and 100,000 years old and is adapted for a life before all our modern conveniences. No automobile, no cell phone, no refrigerator, no food preservatives and certainly no deep fryer were a part of any paleolithic human's life. Human beings lived on the move, with the weather and the animals they depended on for food. They often lived on the fringe of starvation.

If a man could gather and catch more than enough food to feed himself, it was quite advantageous for the body to store the excess as fat. These fat stores could mean the difference between life and death if food were to become scarce further down the line. Then about 10,000 years ago humanity developed a breakthrough: we began learning that we could control our environment. We caught animals and built fences. We planted seeds that sprouted crops. Food was instantly more abundant. Life was easier. Populations flourished and expanded. We built dwellings that made life easier...

Fast forward

And the people became sedentary. There was no longer any need to chase down a 1000 pound water buffalo with a pointy stick for hours (or days!) to survive. Yet life was still very difficult compared to how easy we have it now in modern times. Within the past two hundred years, the world population has exploded from less than 500 million to over 6.5 billion - and it's still growing ever larger. Your local supermarket gives you potentially endless possibilities for ingestion. Our food production systems have become super-efficient. However, our DNA has not adapted at the same rate. Your body is still biologically programmed for survival in a world where food is scarce. Its purposes itself with extracting every nutrient, every calorie it can. Thus when a person eats foods that are super-saturated with calories, of course the body is going to hang onto the excess as fat. It was made to.

However, once again our DNA has not adapted for our current lifestyle. Our body does not know how to properly manage perpetual obesity. It stores toxin buildup in fatty tissue, which can cause damaging conditions like cancer. Inability to control blood sugar leads to diabetes which leads to further weight complications. The extra weight places stress on the heart and vascular system, the excess cholesterol builds up on the arterial walls further constricting blood flow, the endocrine system continues to encourage fat retention, and other organ systems suffer as a result. In other words, our bodies just don't know when to stop.

But the real problem arises when people don't know when to stop. Those who don't know how to manage their habits and give their body what it needs (not what their stomach wants) end up suffering the consequences. Ours is a culture based on the proliferation of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. It's why we procrastinate when that big project deadline is a week away. It's why we hit the all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet and then don't run the next day. Eating is fun. Running hurts! Food is good! Puking is bad. It's logical in a way. And nowhere in the country is the pleasure culture more alive than in the South. Take it from me - I live in South Florida. Centuries of localized cuisine development and warm winters have just made things... soft. Just think about soul food. I doubt that anywhere else on earth can one find food that is so over-the-top as in the Deep South. Fried, stuffed, drizzled, marinated, glazed, you name it, if it ends in -ed, you can find it, and eat it. Come to think of it there's a pizza joint near here that has a 22" super-pizza they call the "Quadruple By-pass". When we are naming our foods after open heart surgery techniques, that may indicate a problem.

So we eat ourselves sick. Once that has been achieved, it's just a matter of time before that double, or triple chin. And then at your physical the doctor tells you that the reason you can't feel your feet at night is that the new fat is pressing on your nerve connections. He runs a blood test. Your bad cholesterol is too high. Your good cholesterol is too low. Your heart and lungs are woefully inefficient. Your lower back vertebrae are misaligned. You're pre-diabetic. You're diabetic. You mention your acid reflux. Your E.D. Your depression (after all, you can't stand to look in the mirror anymore and your spouse finds you repulsive). What can you do? Only one thing to do: Medicate!

The trouble is, too many people at this point still don't take control. They think the drugs are going to restore their vitality and make everything okay. Truth is, all these things are much more effective when combined with a sensible diet and physical activity. Or the cessation of smoking (let's not even get started on that one). But even in the best case scenario, the pharmaceutical companies would probably prefer it if you stayed on their drugs. After all, they're not not-for-profit. They're doing business just like any other company. Their responsibility is to their shareholders, not to you the consumer. And even if you had stock in them, at least you know where your money is going! But what about your responsibility to yourself?

What we need right now is some good old-fashioned accountability. People need to accept responsibility for their health. In our worry-about-it-later, sue-happy, discomfort-avoiding society, we produce such notable news headlines as "Man Sues McDonalds for Making Him Fat". The fact that someone thought that was even a basis for prosecution is laughable but sad. The man should be counter-sued for propagating the victim mentality that many employ as an excuse for their own inadequacy.

How do we stop this disturbing trend?

Whew. What a fat mess of problems. What we need is a paradigm shift in approach to this Battle of the Buldge. West Viriginia, Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Kentucky and Missouri: listen up. People - most people - sensible people - are afraid of dying an early death. It's been said that what you don't know can't hurt you. That's a big fat lie. What we need is education, and lots of it. The brand that's been on rotation lately is obviously woefully anemic. Folks just don't seem to get it, or if they do they don't care; they don't understand moderation, they don't understand how to choose proper nutrition, they don't understand how to determine their needs from their wants. They don't see the big, fat picture. They don't have the information needed to scare them onto the straight and narrow.

They need education for the real world, not sterile, faceless statistics. It might even be possible to convince some of the less-evil pharmaceutical companies to fund some of this education! It needs to start in the elementary schools. Sure, we all learned about the food pyramid in second grade. Well, that thing is about as outdated as the Pyramids themselves. Huge advances in real nutrition have been made in the last ten to twenty years but public knowledge is still trudging along shouting slogans like "Saturated fats are all the same!" and "Soy milk cured my allergies!" or "Ban trans fats entirely!" and the old mainstay "Red meat kills!". I've got a quick news flash for people like this: Eating the right fats can make you lose fat.

Pertinent information and knowledge are the best tools to overcome any situation, to solve any problem. People need to know that they can prevent these life-degrading and life-taking conditions, and how easy it is to do so. That they don't have to count calories, but rather develop good habits. That they don't have to give up video games or television, but instead put three to five hours a week toward their health and longevity. They need to hear it and hear it often, no, more than often. It needs to become part of the culture, the society. The Department of Health should get a bigger allowance and hit the ground running. When I was a kid I had a vague idea that Arnold Schwarnzenegger was the President's go-to guy on physical fitness and that meant something even though my parents wouldn't let me watch R-rated movies. Imagine if in today's schools we had big-name athletes teaching kids about healthy lifestyle choices and fitness - often. This is the kind of thing that could really make a difference. We need ideas and we need alternatives. Yes it's hot in the South, does it make running sweaty and nasty? Absolutely. So get on a treadmill or pick up a dumbbell in an air-conditioned gym instead, or run at night (with bright clothes and reflectors, of course). Excuses will be made. They must also be unmade.

I believe Dr. Leslie Cho, director of the Cleveland Clinic's Women's Cardiovascular Center, sums it up nicely: "We can't expect significant change until it becomes a cultural mandate. When society as a whole makes conscious decisions to eat better and as a default plan be more active, then we're going to do better." (cnn.com)

There's so much ignorance in the world. That ignorance is what causes bad things to happen. What people don't know and don't understand is killing them by the hundred thousands each year. In 2006, Heart Disease killed 631,636 people in the US, maybe more. Heart Disease beat out Cancer, and by all accounts cancer makes people crap their pants in fear. According to Dr. Robert Califf, vice chancellor for clinical research at Duke University Medical Center, people just kind of accept the "background noise" about heart disease being the one thing they will most likely die from. (cnn.com)

Is that acceptable? More than half a million people die every year and more than 70 million live with some type of the disease and people just kind of go with that? That's insane. That's akin to telling a crowded room of people that a gunman will enter the room in five minutes and kill them, then leave the door open and tell them they are free to leave only to have them sit complacently and wait for a bullet in the face. We're obviously not being scary enough with our statistics. What's worse is that more than two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese and that figure is extending further into teens and children. When we say America is the greatest nation in the world, that's not what we had in mind...

Maybe a slogan would be a good start... Yeah! "Guns don't kill people, Trans Fats do." or "Surgeon general's warning: Obesity will kill your whole family!" Okay, maybe those are lame, but we really need to get on top of this problem. This epidemic. This pandemic. Obesity and Heart Disease are coming for you. Are you ready... able, to fight back? Do you want to live to see your grandchildren?

Conclusion

Often times, change can start with just one person and that means you! Stop sitting on the couch for five hours a day watching TV. Become active, educated and get fit. You are your biggest ally in the fight against obesity, and you alone, hold your fate in your hand. You can't control your problems with a pill.

Works referenced
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/FASTATS/deaths.htm
http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/10/30...iew/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_disease
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_Revolution

Garden Of Life Perfect Cleanse, 10 Day System