Diabetes rate doubles in U.S.; Americans not even in top 25 of "healthy" countries

Today's headlines screamed out: "Diabetes rate doubles over last 30 years: Higher incidence of type 2 blamed on obesity, lifestyle changes."

Blamed on obesity? Like that tells us anything....


How about:

• In 1967, Americans ate 114 pounds of raw or refined sugar and a trifling amount of other sweeteners per year, per person. In 2003, the amount of sugar eaten per person jumped to 142 pounds, plus an additional 61 pounds of high-fructose corn syrup, a sugar product now used to sweeten everything from ketchup and soda pop to ranch dressing.
• Since 1950, soft-drink consumption per capita has quadrupled, from about 11 gallons per year to about 46 gallons in 2003 — nearly a gallon a week per person.
• The calories from those soft drinks alone account for 16% of the calories an adult consumes, and over 20% of the average teenager's calories come from soft drinks.
• Per person, in 2003 Americans consumed about 8.3 pounds of broccoli and barely 25 pounds of dark lettuces (not that iceburg crap we've been conditioned to think of as "lettuce").

In the 1970s, the incidence of diabetes was the lowest, at 2.0 percent among women and 2.7 percent among men. By the 1990s, the corresponding rates had climbed to their highest points: 3.7 percent and 5.8 percent.

Are we burning off those calories? According to the A.C. Nielsen Co. in 1998, the average American was watching 3 hours and 46 minutes of TV each day (more than 52 days of nonstop TV-watching per year). In 2001, average daily TV watching exceeded four hours. By age 65 the average American will have spent over nine years glued to the tube.

But we exercise more, right?

• Over 60% of American adults are not regularly active
• 25% of adults are not active at all
• Only 19% of high school students are active for 20 minutes or more per day

But surely, we're the healthiest country in the world, right?

• On average, the citizens of 29 countries are less overweight than those of the United States, including New Zealand, Mexico, Finland, Israel, Canada, Australia, Ireland, Peru, Sweden, Belgium and Brazil
• Infant mortality rates in several countries are substantially less than the rate in the United States, including Hong Kong (2.3 deaths per 1,000 live births), Japan (3.0 deaths), Sweden (2.8 deaths), France (4.1 deaths), Germany (4.3 deaths), Spain (3.4 deaths), Czech Republic (4.2 deaths), Italy (4.7 deaths), Canada (5.4 deaths), Australia (5.0 deaths), the United Kingdom (5.2 deaths) and Cuba (6.5 deaths)
• Today, 28 countries have healthy life expectancies that exceed the United States, including the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, France, Germany and Japan. The highest, Japan, exceeds the United States by more than five years, meaning that the average newborn child in Japan can expect to have more than five additional years in which to enjoy a healthy, active life.

But hey... We're Number One! in number of McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy's, Dairy Queen, Pizza Hut, Domino's, Taco Bell, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Mountain Dew, ad nauseum.

Sources:
MSNBC; U.S. News & World Report; TV Free America; Sourcebook for Teaching Science; Surgeon General's Report on Exercise, 1996, as discussed at Mahoning County District (Ohio) Department of Health; United Health Federation, quoting March of Dimes and World Health Organization statistics

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