Because of the limited access to supermarkets, they eat more unhealthy fast and processed foods and end up having 7 times the risk of early-life stroke (before age 45), putting people in nursing homes in their 30s, 40s, and 50s. These unfortunate folks live in what we call “food deserts,” with reduced availability to fresh fruits and vegetables. And many people don’t realize the harm that processed foods have on Americans living in urban areas where they don’t have easy access to whole, fresh foods. Currently, 1 in 5 Americans suffers from a psychiatric disorder. Many people recognize that junk food, fast food, processed food, white flour, sugar, maple syrup, honey, agave nectar, and all the junk people are eating contribute to in obesity, diabetes, heart attacks, strokes, dementia and cancer, but many don’t realize the strong causative role an unhealthy diet may have in mental illness. I use the term “Fast Food Genocide” because most don’t understand the depth and breadth of the harm as a large segment of our society eats a diet worse than the dangerous SAD. 3 The Standard American Diet (SAD) is clearly not a healthy diet. A recent study documented that only 2.7% of Americans adopt a relatively healthy lifestyle by combining exercise with healthy eating. Therefore, perhaps that only about 5% of the American population is at a normal weight as a result of eating healthy and living a healthy life. And out of the approximately 10% that are of normal weight, the majority of those so-called “normal weight individuals” are either cigarette smokers, or suffer from alcoholism, drug addiction or dependency, autoimmune disease, occult cancers, inflammatory disorders, autoimmune conditions, digestive disorders, irritable bowel syndrome, and other illnesses that lower their body weight. If we use above 23 kg/m 2 as the demarcation for overweight or obesity, then we find that 88% of Americans are overweight. Yet in long-lived societies such as in the “Blue Zones” (Ikaria, Greece Sardinia, Italy Okinawa, Japan the Nicoya Peninsula of Costa Rica and Loma, Linda California) and wherever we find groups of centenarians, we observe a healthy BMI below 23 kg/m 2, not 25 kg/m 2.

2Īuthorities determined the 71% figure by classifying people with a body mass index (BMI) over 25 kg/m 2 as overweight or obese. Today, eating processed foods and fast foods may kill more people prematurely than cigarette smoking.

1 That means a staggering 100 million people in America are obese. Over the past 50 years, the health of Americans has gotten worse, and now 71% of Americans are overweight or obese-not 66%, which was reported 5 years ago. In addition, healthy lifestyles would impact a significant number of cancers which are also believed to be related to lifestyle exposures, especially to obesity, cigarettes, and other toxins. The fundamental concern as we look to reform health in America is the known reality that most chronic diseases that afflict Americans are predominantly lifestyle induced and the belief is that the vast majority of heart attacks and strokes could be prevented if people were willing to adopt healthy lifestyle behaviors.

Sick junk