Fat Freddy, Betty Obese and Elegant Ellen

More than 70% of American adults are overweight and over 30% are obese. Waistlines started expanding in the late 50s, picked up speed in the 60s and went into overdrive from the 80s. Diet books surf the waves on the tide of flesh. A smorgasbord of experts, committees, organizations, media articles and TV programs feed off the fat of the land. Fingers greased with political correctness point at Fat Freddy and Betty Obese for eating too much and exercising too little.

Not true!
This picture of Freddy and Betty portrays an obese lie. When a few people become overweight they represent an exception. Today overweight is the norm. The people not overweight are the exceptions. You wouldn’t know this staring at the media where predominantly exceptional (not overweight) people populate the territory in front of cameras.

Freddy and Betty haven’t “grown” fat. They’ve been fattened. They are victims of a hunger for profits. Weight increase is a global trend. The exceptional nation expanded exceptionally to begin with but other nations are catching up and researchers are catching on.

research has completely demolished this notion (that fewer calories will result in weight loss), showing that artificial sweeteners actually have the converse effect; they lower appetite suppressant chemicals and encourage sugar cravings and sugar dependence, thereby raising your odds of unwanted weight gain. Research has also shown artificial sweeteners promote insulin resistance and related health problems just like regular sugar does.
Dr. Ralph G. Walton, chairman of the Center for Behavioral Medicine and chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at the Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine.

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avoid artificial sweeteners like the plague. There’s little doubt in my mind that artificial sweeteners can be even worse for you than sugar and fructose, and there is scientific evidence to back up that conclusion. /—/ artificial sweeteners are primarily promoted to diabetics and those concerned about their weight. This despite the fact that artificial sweeteners have repeatedly been shown to produce the exact opposite effects.
Dr. Joseph Mercola, one of the leading authorities on nutrition in the US.

Doctors Walton and Mercola are two of the professionals among a minority warning us about the fattening dangers of artificial sweeteners and lite products. An expanding corps of non-professional researchers such as The Food Babe, Vani Hari, also join in on the barricades of good health, not to mention salvos of criticism against the food and drug corporations from books and blogs. Born With a Junk Food Deficiency by Martha Rosenberg, Confessions of an Rx Drug Pusher by Gwen Olsen, and Fat Land by Greg Critser are just three of the books that help reduce the hard junk in our arteries of thought.

The corporations obese with billions in profits have millions to spend on promoting and defending the culture deteriorating our health. They finance institutions, support research departments, lobby politicians, buy officials and command major media resources. We have to hack through a jungle of sweet bullshit and tramp through swamps of fat lies in order to get to the truth weighing so heavily on our health. Few people are willing to go this route. Allow me to show you a short cut.

If we follow the growth of fat since the mid 1950s we see that it parallels the growth of artificial sweeteners that were introduced in soft drinks in 1953. The soft drink industry expanded along with waistlines. Just a coincidence? Diabetes Type 1, (child diabetes) also started its alarming expansion about 1955 after having been stable for 30 years previously. Diabetes type 1 is not related to diet or exercise. It destroys the ability of the pancreas to produce insulin. The spread of this deadly (if not treated with daily doses of insulin) disease has reached pandemic proportions and is increasing with a whopping 5% per year worldwide. As insulin is one of the oldest, smallest and most basic proteins among the thousands we produce daily, disrupting this little chemical structure sounds danger to the clan of humanity.

Is the growth of diabetes, all types, paralleling the growth of artificial sweetners, another coincidence?

One of these sweeteners, aspartame, produced brain tumors in laboratory animals. The industry assured us that this was an exceptional and insignificant study. Since its introduction in food products in 1967 brain tumors have increased by 40%. Another coincidence.

These are some thoughts on the standard condition of overweight Americans and their contemporaries throughout the world. You don’t have to believe that corporate hunger for profits are driving the health of the world toward extinction. Take another serving of lite ice-cream and enjoy the time you have left.

What about Elegant Ellen? Try to convince her to have her or her daughter’s breast milk analyzed. When she sees the amount of environmental toxins they are feeding the next generation of allergy prone children, they might want to do something about the cracks in their elegance.

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“Contrary to popular belief and desperate desire
life doesn’t always find a way.”
Dartwill Aquila

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