The American way of eating has become the elephant in the room in the debate over health care. The president has made a few notable allusions to it, and, by planting her vegetable garden on the South Lawn, Michelle Obama has tried to focus our attention on it. Just last month, Mr. Obama talked about putting a farmers’ market in front of the White House, and building new distribution networks to connect local farmers to public schools so that student lunches might offer more fresh produce and fewer Tater Tots. He’s even floated the idea of taxing soda.
But so far, food system reform has not figured in the national conversation about health care reform. And so the government is poised to go on encouraging America’s fast-food diet with its farm policies even as it takes on added responsibilities for covering the medical costs of that diet. To put it more bluntly, the government is putting itself in the uncomfortable position of subsidizing both the costs of treating Type 2 diabetes and the consumption of high-fructose corn syrup.
–Michael Pollan, in an Op-Ed piece in The New York Times Saturday, September 9, 2009.
If you have junior high or high school kids, no doubt you shop for their food and know what they eat. Or do you?
Have you ever driven past their school as it lets out for lunch break or at the end of the day and watched what happens? I did last week and I was shocked. Large (and I mean that in every way) groups of kids strolled away from campus right to the local c-store. A few minutes later, out they came with cellophane bags full of orange things and cans of Red Bull or liter bottles of soda.
High-fructose corn syrup is, of course, the main ingredient of that lunch or snack. A large bag of Cheetos holds 9 servings. At 140 calories per serving, half of which is fat, that’s over 1200 calories! Add the 400 calories and 108 grams of carbs in the soda, and that child is headed for size 15 designer jeans and Type 2 diabetes in a couple of years, as are more than half of the kids in Sonoma County today.
More than half! According to the Sonoma County Health Department, “For the first time in recent history, the life expectancy of children today will be less than that of their parents, largely due to health risks associated with overweight and obesity.” What will become of any healthcare system if this is its future? Fat kids become fat adults, hooked on junk food and unable to exercise properly because of their weight. Inertia sets in. You know the physics law that a body in motion tends to stay in motion, and a body at rest tends to stay at rest. We are raising a whole generation of people destined to be couch high-fructose corn syrup addicts.
What does this have to do with farming? Everything. Growing healthy food, healthy young farm workers, and healthy attitudes to vegetables in kids (and adults) has been my passion for over 8 years. I see first hand what the good food does for their moods, their energy, their strong bodies, and their minds. They are believers because they can feel the effects of eating sunshine, soil minerals and pure well water every single day.
Vibrant, healthy, vital, glowing. Not your typical patient in the ER or doctor’s office. And not your typical junior high or high school student either.
So, think there’s a connection? Tell Mr. and Mrs. Obama. Let’s turn our schools, our hospitals, our doctor’s waiting rooms, our family dining rooms into healthcare centers that focus on real healthcare reform — what we’re feeding our own and our children’s bodies.
