With obesity being a nightmare, the alleged “cures”, although good, are shortsighted. The mainstream focuses on a societal issue and not just a children’s issue.
One of the greatest influences on children’s behavior is the actions of the adults around them.
That is not to discount the millions spent on marketing products to children or the lure of technology-based entertainment’s effect on children’s activity, but the social environment that we adults create, and the lifestyle choices that we practice, greatly influence how our keiki’s (Hawaiian for children) will live their lives.
Lifestyle habits are established at a young age. The food with which we are most familiar and comfortable eating and the acceptance of physical activity and the integration thereof as a positive part of our lives are thrust upon us in our early years.
So, while it is important to focus on developing healthy lifestyle choices for kids, we cannot teach them these lessons unless we are teachers by example.
Education alone will not and cannot reduce obesity. And while public policies may be instituted to encourage adults as well as kids to adopt healthier choices in their lifestyles, that implementation may be quite difficult.
Why? Because we as a society have swayed so far toward the direction of unhealthy living.
There are recent estimates that suggest that in 20 years, more than 40 percent of U.S. adults will be obese if we do not make changes.
And during that time more than $500 billion will be spent treating the diseases that will result from poor eating habits and that $4 billion alone will be lost by businesses annually because of obesity-related lost days at work.
In Hawaii, organizations like the hypocritical American Heart Association have given lip service to trying to help. They get vocal about increasing PE classes in our elementary and middle schools but at their annual “Heart Ball”, where they charge $300 to $500 a plate to raise money for heart disease, they serve filet mignon, prime ribs or veal. There’s nothing like “looking” politically correct is there?
Advocating that quality, PE taught by qualified instructors that can “inspire” even non-athletic kids to adopt lifelong physical activities that will help keep them healthy well into their adult lives is one thing and leading efforts to reduce sugar-consumption is another.
Granted they show statistics that a person drinking one can of sugar-sweetened beverage daily consumes the equivalent of 10 5-pound bags of sugar each year, but why don’t they attack the problem at it’s source – the school lunch program?
In the school lunch program, foods under the guise of good nutrition – chili cheese dogs, pepperoni pizza, cheeseburgers and pork chops – are there to prop up farm incomes and are the crux of the problem.
Federal policy, which is heavily influenced by the meat and dairy lobbies, literally force the Secretary of Agriculture to favor beef, pork and other high fat foods over healthier ones when purchasing surplus commodities for federal feeding programs.
In 2001, the USDA (U.S. Dept of A**holes) spent $350 million on surplus beef and cheese, which was more than double the amount spent on fruits and vegetables.
Another mindblower is that federal policy prohibits schools from serving any non-dairy beverage as part of a subsidized lunch unless the kid brings in a doctor’s note saying that he or she has a medical reason not to drink cow’s milk.
This is so discriminatory considering that fact that upwards to 95% of Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans and Asians are lactose intolerant as well as many Caucasians as well.
Not that many years ago, the USDA dumped 420 million pounds of pork, beef and other unhealthy products on our kids and others in the feeding programs just to prop up sagging farm products.
In fact, the government’s two biggest expenditures for the national School Lunch Program were $179 million for cheese and another $170 million for beef. Come on, do you really think that our already out-of-shape kids need more cheeseburgers, pepperoni pizza, and nutrient-depleted milk?
The National School Lunch Program provides food for more than half of all the kids in the U.S. and one in ten has school breakfast. Eight million breakfasts and 27 million lunches provided every day. And the schools that choose to participate in the program get cash subsidies, donated commodities, and free bonus shipments from the USDA for each meal they serve.
For this generosity they must serve the lunches that meet the meet the federal requirements, including nutritional requirements spelled out in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which is dominated by input from the meat and dairy industries.
In 1997, the commodities program’s school lunch component spent $436 million – more than 70% of it’s money – on animal products which contain no fiber or complex carbohydrates and help clog the arteries of our kids and foster the obesity epidemic because of their high fat and cholesterol content.
And yet, the American Heart Association, which has been trying to raise money to combat heart disease for 30 plus years, can’t figure this out.
In Hawaii, years ago, a bill was submitted that said the schools shall offer vegetarian meals in their lunch programs. Two entities voted against it – the Board of Education and the Department of Health. When the word shall, was changed to should, they voted for it. No vegetarian meals ever appeared and the flesh, egg and dairy companies never lost a dime!
Nothing like selling the kids down the river to make a few bucks and all the while making believe they are concerned about the obesity problems we face, is there?
Aloha!
Sources:
Just to put things in perspective, after I graduated from Weequahic High School and before going to Seton Hall University, I had a part-time job working for a butcher. I was the delivery guy and occasionally had to go to the slaughterhouse to pick up products for the store. Needless to say, I had no consciousness nor awareness, as change never came then despite the horrors I witnessed on an almost daily basis.
After graduating with a degree in accounting from Seton Hall, I eventually got married and moved to a town called Livingston. Livingston was basically a yuppie community where everyone was judged by the neighborhood they lived in and their income. To say it was a "plastic" community would be an understatement.
Livingston and the shallowness finally got to me. I told my wife I was fed up and wanted to move. She made it clear she had to be near her friends and New York City. I finally got my act together and split for Colorado.
I was living with a lady in Aspen at the end of 1974, when one day she said, " let's become vegetarians". I have no idea what possessed me to say it, but I said, "okay"! At that point I went to the freezer and took out about $100 worth of frozen, dead body parts and gave them to a welfare mother who lived behind us. Well, everything was great for about a week or so, and then the chick split with another guy.
So here I was, a vegetarian for a couple weeks, not really knowing what to do, how to cook, or basically how to prepare anything. For about a month, I was getting by on carrot sticks, celery sticks, and yogurt. Fortunately, when I went vegan in 1990, it was a simple and natural progression. Anyway, as I walked around Aspen town, I noticed a little vegetarian restaurant called, "The Little Kitchen".
Let me back up just a little bit. It was April of 1975, the snow was melting and the runoff of Ajax Mountain filled the streets full of knee-deep mud. Now, Aspen was great to ski in, but was a bummer to walk in when the snow was melting.
I was ready to call it quits and I needed a warmer place. I'll elaborate on that in a minute.
But right now, back to "The Little Kitchen". Knowing that I was going to leave Aspen and basically a new vegetarian, I needed help. So, I cruised into the restaurant and told them my plight and asked them if they would teach me how to cook. I told them in return I would wash dishes and empty their trash. They then asked me what I did for a living and I told them I was an accountant.
The owner said to me, "Let's make a deal. You do our tax return and we'll feed you as well". So for the next couple of weeks I was doing their tax return, washing their dishes, emptying the trash, and learning as much as I could.
But, like I said, the mud was getting to me. So I picked up a travel book written by a guy named Foder. The name of the book was, "Hawaii". Looking through the book I noticed that in Lahaina, on Maui, there was a little vegetarian restaurant called," Mr. Natural's". I decided right then and there that I would go to Lahaina and work at "Mr. Natural's." To make a long story short, that's exactly what happened.
So, I'm working at "Mr. Natural's" and learning everything I can about my new dietary lifestyle - it was great. Every afternoon we would close for lunch at about 1 PM and go to the Sheraton Hotel in Ka'anapali and play volleyball, while somebody stayed behind to prepare dinner.
Since I was the new guy, and didn't really know how to cook, I never thought that I would be asked to stay behind to cook dinner. Well, one afternoon, that's exactly what happened; it was my turn. That posed a problem for me because I was at the point where I finally knew how to boil water.
I was desperate, clueless and basically up the creek without a paddle. Fortunately, there was a friend of mine sitting in the gazebo at the restaurant and I asked him if he knew how to cook. He said the only thing he knew how to cook was enchiladas. He said that his enchiladas were bean-less and dairy-less. I told him that I had no idea what an enchilada was or what he was talking about, but I needed him to show me because it was my turn to do the evening meal.
Well, the guys came back from playing volleyball and I'm asked what was for dinner. I told them enchiladas; the owner wasn't thrilled. I told him that mine were bean-less and dairy-less. When he tried the enchilada he said it was incredible. Being the humble guy that I was, I smiled and said, "You expected anything less"? It apparently was so good that it was the only item on the menu that we served twice a week. In fact, after about a week, we were selling five dozen every night we had them on the menu and people would walk around Lahaina broadcasting, 'enchilada's at "Natural's" tonight'. I never had to cook anything else.
A year later the restaurant closed, and somehow I gravitated to a little health food store in Wailuku. I never told anyone I was an accountant and basically relegated myself to being the truck driver. The guys who were running the health food store had friends in similar businesses and farms on many of the islands. I told them that if they could organize and form one company they could probably lock in the State. That's when they found out I was an accountant and "Down to Earth" was born. "Down to Earth" became the largest natural food store chain in the islands, and I was their Chief Financial Officer and co-manager of their biggest store for 13 years.
In 1981, I started to do a weekly radio show to try and expose people to a vegetarian diet and get them away from killing innocent creatures. I still do that show today. I pay for my own airtime and have no sponsors to not compromise my honesty. One bit of a hassle was the fact that I was forced to get a Masters Degree in Nutrition to shut up all the MD's that would call in asking for my credentials.
My doing this radio show enabled me, through endless research, to see the corruption that existed within the big food industries, the big pharmaceutical companies, the biotech industries and the government agencies. This information, unconscionable as it is, enabled me to realize how broken our health system is. This will be covered more in depth in the Introduction and throughout the book and when you finish the book you will see this clearly and it will hopefully inspire you to make changes.
I left Down to Earth in 1989, got nationally certified as a sports injury massage therapist and started traveling the world with a bunch of guys that were making a martial arts movie. After doing that for about four years I finally made it back to Honolulu and got a job as a massage therapist at the Honolulu Club, one of Hawaii's premier fitness clubs. It was there I met the love of my life who I have been with since 1998. She made me an offer I couldn't refuse. She said," If you want to be with me you've got to stop working on naked women". So, I went back into accounting and was the Chief Financial Officer of a large construction company for many years.
Going back to my Newark days when I was an infant, I had no idea what a "chicken" or "egg" or "fish" or "pig" or "cow" was. My dietary blueprint was thrust upon me by my parents as theirs was thrust upon them by their parents. It was by the grace of God that I was able to put things in their proper perspective and improve my health and elevate my consciousness.
The road that I started walking down in 1975 has finally led me to the point of writing my book, “A Sane Diet For An Insane World”. Hopefully, the information contained herein will be enlightening, motivating, and inspiring to encourage you to make different choices. Doing what we do out of conditioning is not always the best course to follow. I am hoping that by the grace of the many friends and personalities I have encountered along my path, you will have a better perspective of what road is the best road for you to travel on, not only for your health but your consciousness as well.
Last but not least: after being vaccinated as a kid I developed asthma, which plagued me all of my life. In 2007 I got exposed to the organic sulfur crystals, which got rid of my asthma in 3 days and has not come back in over 10 years. That, being the tip of the iceberg, has helped people reverse stage 4 cancers, autism, joint pain, blood pressure problems, migraine headaches, erectile dysfunction, gingivitis, and more. Also, because of the detoxification effects by the release of oxygen that permeates and heals all the cells in the body, it removes parasites, radiation, fluoride, free radicals, and all the other crap that is thrust upon us in the environment by Big Business.
For more, please view www.healthtalkhawaii.com and www.asanediet.com.
Namaste!
