Fast Food Genocide

by Dr. Joel Fuhrman

  PUT ON YOUR OXYGEN MASK FIRST

  The United States is a great nation because our citizens frequently enjoy a high standard of living, but we are collectively suffering from poor health. Our country has the highest rates of obesity in the world and the highest rates of almost every chronic disease, yet other nations are catching up as we export our fast food culture to them. What if we could create a nutritional advantage for every single American? By harnessing the power of social energy and making high-nutrient foods universally available, we can give every person a nutritional advantage. This in turn would enable everyone to rise above his or her circumstances and overcome life’s adversities. This potential requires altruism, compassion, empathy, and knowledge.

  We also have an obligation to take care of our own health. We need to be effective role models in order to maximize our favorable impact on others. We have to take care of our bodies and minds as we age to avoid becoming dependent on our children, so they don’t have to give up their own lives and care for us when we become sick, demented, and debilitated from eating improperly. When we don’t take care of our health, we don’t just hurt ourselves; we place undue stress on those we care about the most.

  Changing one’s eating habits is not simple, and many people struggle with it. In my multiple decades of research and clinical practice, I have learned that the principal reason people struggle to adopt a healthy diet is because they have internal conflicts. One part of them wants to be healthy, while the other part wants to do something that results in the opposite of health. An unhealthy behavioral pattern, like eating a pint of ice cream, provides pleasure in the moment. In that moment when you hold the ice cream carton and spoon in your hands, you want to eat the ice cream; however, in the larger perspective, you want to be healthy and lead a long, productive life.

  Adopting a healthy lifestyle generally requires change on many levels. Each level is controlled by a different region of the brain, and each level is like a different radio frequency or channel. To achieve permanent success in the health arena, we have to consider the complexity of human nature. We are physical, emotional, and social beings, and we must consider all of these factors when we seek to improve our health. If we don’t, many people will reject incorporating or even learning more about a health-supporting lifestyle. Initial interest will dissipate. This is a physical manifestation of a subconscious process. Our brains are designed to dim awareness to information that causes us anxiety. For most people, the idea of overhauling the way they think about food and the way they eat is a source of anxiety. Plus, unhealthy foods are a slow-working poison. Many ailments related to the foods people eat take years to develop, and the only visible issue for most people is their excess weight. Studies have shown that most overweight people routinely underestimate the extent of their obesity and do not see themselves as significantly overweight. Consequently, it is not too difficult to imagine how so many people can ignore the evidence. They often don’t see that it has anything to do with them.

  The objections of those unwilling to change their diets can sometimes have very little to do with food. It is often the direct result of low self-esteem, which makes them vulnerable to negative peer pressure, addictions, and emotional overeating. Some may fear appearing different from other people, and they think changing the way they eat will result in a loss or weakening of their social relationships. This is a subconscious perception, but some people are unknowingly governed by it. Others overeat to a stupor, raising hormones in the brain so that they can dull the frustration and pain of their lives.

  Our brains release certain hormones when we have positive social interactions. If these interactions are eliminated, the brain will seek out other ways to produce the hormones and pleasurable stimulation. This is why people with strong social ties are far less likely to be drawn into compulsive overeating and other addictive behaviors. For people who lack the emotional fulfillment that social relationships can provide, consumption of high-calorie foods gives the brain the surge it is looking for. Therefore, they are more compelled to engage in addictive eating behavior. It is important to work on all aspects of one’s life simultaneously to successfully change eating behaviors.

  Bad dietary habits can’t solve anyone’s social problems. Unhealthful behaviors lead to poor health, lower emotional well-being, and then advance this negative cycle. You have to address your beliefs, your thinking, your actions, and your diet because they work hand in hand. When you have a legitimate reason to believe in yourself, you will care for yourself better and be more inclined to eat right.

  Feeling that you belong within a group of friends who help you to be a better person and with whom you have something in common raises your emotional health and self-confidence. It is far easier to change and transition into a healthy lifestyle when you have the support of others doing the same. The more your group embraces and supports you in your efforts to eat healthier and live a health-supporting lifestyle, the easier this becomes.

  Our nation as a whole is eating itself to death. It is essential that we find smaller groups of support when attempting to move away from the deadly dietary norm. If you have a real and tangible positive social group, you are much less likely to be affected by the artificial ones created by advertisers, marketers, and technology.

  If you want to get healthy, encourage others to join you and hang around other healthy people and those striving to be healthy.

  Some people will try to make you feel uncomfortable because you are eating healthfully. Your change in behavior may make them uncomfortable because you are forcing them to examine their own unhealthy practices. If you look for approval from someone who is struggling on that issue, you will generally not get a positive response. Regardless of the illogical motives of the unconscious mind to “save face,” you actually lower your social energy by letting these forces govern your life’s choices.

  Emotional health depends on feeling good about yourself. You need a legitimate reason to feel good about yourself and be enthusiastic about life. This can evolve from your efforts to make a difference and to value goodness around you—not trying to impress, not trying to make yourself look good, but rather trying to appreciate how much others have value and beauty in them. Feeling isolated and unconnected is worse than actually being isolated and unconnected. Fortunately nowadays, there are lots of ways to connect socially with others, particularly online. Online forums and various social media provide ways of communication and places where you can give and receive support. Obtaining peers who are also interested in healthy living is a great idea. Forming a support group or even joining a support group on the Internet can help you achieve personal success.

  The good news is that you are not at the mercy of your genes or your subconscious mind, and you can control your health and weight. Heart disease, stroke, cancer, dementia, diabetes, allergies, arthritis, and other common illnesses are not predominantly genetic. They are the result of incorrect dietary choices. With knowledge, you can be empowered to make new choices by changing the way that you think.

  It is important for all of us to understand the critical necessity to put in our mouths high-quality, nourishing food. Eat very little salt and fewer animal products. Eat mostly vegetables, beans, fruits, onions, mushrooms, nuts, and seeds. To paraphrase President John F. Kennedy, “It is not what your diet can do for you, it is what your diet can do for your country” (or something like that). By working together, we can become a healthier, more productive population. The burden of our health need not fall on our children, and the high cost of medical care should not be a fear that lives with us daily.

  We are paying for this fast food genocide with our shared tax dollars. When people eat themselves into coronary bypass surgery or wind up in a nursing home, we all pay for it with our taxes and national debt. Our sickly population weakens our economy, and our businesses and industries can’t compete within a world market given our exorbitant medical expenses. The cost of treating just heart disease and stroke is ex
pected to triple over the next twenty years to $818 billion. Eating right will protect you and also help our neighbors, our country, and our planet. It is the right thing to do.

  CHAPTER SIX

  MAKING DESERTS GREEN AGAIN

  We consider it normal to lose youthful vigor in our 30s, carry 30 to 40 extra pounds, live with chronic illness in our late 40s and 50s, and live our last decades completely dependent on others. But this should not be considered normal. This is the result of a lifelong pattern of unhealthful living and misguided information. We should look forward to enjoying an active life into our 90s. This seems like an outrageous expectation because most people spend a lifetime consuming an inadequate diet. They have yet to make the connection that we are what we eat and that ill health in the later years of our lives is the result of our earlier poor choices.

  On the banks of the Delaware River, across from Philadelphia—the city of brotherly love—lies Camden, New Jersey, a city with a population of about seventy-seven thousand. It is one of the most violent cities in the country. It suffers from extreme poverty, high rates of obesity and diabetes, and low high school graduation rates. The problems plaguing Camden, and other urban areas like it, have baffled experts for years because it is a problem that hides in plain sight on almost every corner: Most residents of Camden do not live near a grocery store. Instead, they are surrounded by small neighborhood stores stocked with cigarettes, lottery tickets, highly processed snack foods, and few, if any, fresh fruits and vegetables. Camden is recognized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) as a food desert.

  The USDA defines a food desert as “a low-income census tract where either a substantial number or share of residents has low access to a supermarket or large grocery store.”1 When grocery stores, farmers’ markets, and other healthy food providers aren’t available, the corner store or fast food restaurant becomes the primary source of nutrition, particularly for people who don’t own a car.

  The rate of diabetes in a neighborhood is a barometer of its neighborhood-level deprivation of fresh produce.2 Residents in urban areas like Camden suffer from diabetes at rates twice the national average. The amount of vegetables consumed in Camden is one of the lowest in the country, and this low consumption of vegetables is especially noted during the teenage years, the time when the influence of nutrition on behavior is profound.3

  Food deserts are predominately located in low-income areas where people typically don’t have easy access to transportation. People who can’t afford to drive the mile or more to a grocery store are forced to rely on corner stores, bodegas, and fast food joints that sell commercial foods that create health problems. Imagine going into your local corner store and finding that every item on the shelf is unsafe for prolonged human consumption. This is the stark reality for more than 29 million Americans and 8 million children.4

  Obesity and Diabetes by Zip Code

  A report commissioned by LaSalle Bank in Chicago and undertaken by Mari Gallagher Research and Consulting Group with the help of the University of Michigan School of Public Health is titled “Examining the Impact of Food Deserts on Public Health in Chicago.”5

  Researchers gave each urban community a score called a Food Balance Score. They measured the distance from every block and community to the nearest grocery store and divided that number by the distance to the nearest fast food restaurant. The higher the number, the more out of balance healthy food access was.

  They reviewed the death rates and age of death in those areas and were able to calculate the Years of Potential Life Lost (YPLL), which estimated the average years a person would have lived if he or she had not died prematurely. YPLL is a measure of premature mortality. As an alternative to death rate, this method gives more weight to deaths that occur among younger people. Death rate records deaths per 1,000 population at all ages.6

  The results were shocking: The people who lived in areas with the worst food balance score were the most obese and had more than double the death rate from diabetes and cardiovascular disease compared with people who lived in areas with a better food balance score. The YPLL for diabetics in these locales showed that these people were losing more than forty-five years of life.

  DIABETES IN CHICAGO COMMUNITIES

  BY FOOD BALANCE SCORE

  Food Balance Grouping YPLL Death Rate (per 1,000 population)

  Worst 45.48 1.27

  Middle 33.48 1.11

  Best 25.36 0.56

  CARDIOVASCULAR DEATH IN CHICAGO COMMUNITIES BY FOOD BALANCE SCORE

  Food Balance Grouping Death Rate Food Balance Score

  Worst 11.07 2.04

  Middle 7.41 1.25

  Best 5.72 0.87

  People with limited access to produce and healthy food are not starving for calories; in fact, most of them consume too many. Urban food deserts have plenty of fast food restaurants and convenience stores, and the population is generally overweight from the addictive nature of the available Frankenfoods. The problem is the absence or shortage of the delicate health-protective antioxidants and phytochemicals found in a variety of natural produce.

  We routinely overlook the problem because we do not fully comprehend the role of nutrition in shaping what happens from the neck up. Nutritional opportunity determines behavior and intellect. A visit to local corner stores in Camden or Chicago reveals shelves of processed, nutrient-void foods that impair the normal functioning of the human body and brain. Numerous studies have found that the price of food goes down as the added sugar and oil content goes up. Consequently, inner cities in the United States have the lowest cost, lowest nutrient, most dangerous food supply in the world.7

  Commercial foods that line shelves in corner stores are designed to have a long shelf life, look good, and taste good, but they are not compatible with human genetics. This deception is completed by the addition of synthetic nutrients, which prevent short-term vitamin deficiency disease, while the body and mind are slowly destroyed.

  The SAD now derives more than half its calories from chemicalized processed foods, but in urban food deserts, the amount of fresh produce eaten by the local population is less than 5 percent of calories.

  AMERICA’S WORST URBAN FOOD DESERTS

  It is hard to generalize about the country’s worst urban food deserts, as all these areas of concern are not effected equally; there are worse sections and better sections within the cities listed here. All have areas of poor access to fresh produce, with a heavy penetration of fast food restaurants and stores.

  ATLANTA, GEORGIA

  Few supermarkets are to be found in the poorest areas of Atlanta.

  CAMDEN, NEW JERSEY

  Only one supermarket serves an unhealthy populace in a city with one of the highest crime rates in the country.

  CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

  In certain areas of Chicago with little access to large grocery stores, largely African American neighborhoods have twice the death rate from diabetes and heart disease compared with neighborhoods that have adequate access to large grocery stores.

  DETROIT, MICHIGAN

  Detroit is the world’s largest consumer of potato chips,8 and more than half the city is considered a food desert.

  MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE

  A 2010 Gallup poll revealed a startling 26 percent of people in the Memphis Metropolitan Statistical Area who could not afford to buy adequate food for their families.

  MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA

  Food deserts cover about half of Minneapolis and nearly one-third of St. Paul.

  NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA

  Since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the lack of healthy food options in the poorest areas of the city have become critical, though it has been slowly improving.

  WEST OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA

  With healthy produce growers and farmers’ markets only a few miles away, West Oakland has fifty liquor stores and hundreds of fast food restaurants and convenience stores selling junk food, with only a few supermarkets.

  CONSIDERING THE FUTURE CHILDREN OF OU
R COMMUNITIES

  It is well-known that the incidence of obesity and diabetes are common in people who live in food deserts. But rarely do we consider the impact of fast food–infiltrated regions on the unborn. Full-term babies born with low birth weights are the result of intrauterine growth restriction, a term that refers to the poor growth of a baby in the mother’s womb. Researchers have found that the farther an expectant mother has to travel to buy produce, the more likely she is to give birth to a full-term baby with low birth weight.9 Low-nutrient diets create a wide range of physical and mental problems that start early in life. Low birth weights have been directly correlated with future learning problems, heart disease, high blood pressure, and type 2 diabetes later in life.10

  Low-birth-weight babies are also more susceptible to developing future behavioral problems. One study found that 9-year-olds who experienced intrauterine growth restriction had more cognitive impairments, including difficulties with language, creativity, and executive functioning. They also had lower academic achievement and a diminished ability to “self-regulate,” meaning difficulty in regulating attention, which leads to inappropriate behavior and academic problems, and difficulty in regulating negative emotions, which leads to irritability and aggressiveness.11

  Typically during famines women become thin and stop menstruating. They do not become pregnant because of the lack of calories. Those unfortunate to be pregnant when famine strikes produce offspring with long-term health issues, but the damage in these cases is limited, as fewer women become pregnant when food is not available. But Frankenfoods have changed all of that, tricking the body into thinking that it is living in a time of abundance. Junk foods increase birth rates while simultaneously depriving offspring of required nutrients for full brain development.