It seems that every day, some new thing will kill you
and the next day, it's the great health wonderstuff.
Of course, you need to have time to see which
scientists are paid off by the big corps and which
are getting their rat quotas cut back.
However, a particularly interesting line of research
has to do with the effect of high fructose corn syrup
on health. It is now in all sorts of processed food.
The most obvious one is soft/fizzy/pop drinks.
One study (I'll try to find it) showed how these
drinks seem to numb your taste buds and give
you a hankering for more drinks and more
fatty, sugary, salty, sh*tty food.
I know that obesity is not caused by drinks only, but
it has now become an epidemic in the US, which
probably has the highest consumption of fizzers.
Sorry: corrected by Coke. US is #2, for colas
[countries with over 100 servings per year, per capita]
France: 149
Japan: 179
Germany: 190
Great Britain: 210
Brazil: 230
South Africa: 247
Canada: 259
United States: 403
Mexico: 728
or, by nationmaster
Food Statistics > Soft drink consumption (most recent) by country
DEFINITION: Consumption of carbonated soft drinks.
Litres per person per year, 2002.
Rank Countries Amount
# 1 United States: 216 litres
# 2 Ireland: 126 litres
= 3 Norway: 119.8 litres
= 3 Canada: 119.8 litres
# 5 Belgium: 102.9 litres
# 6 Australia: 100.1 litres
[which makes the US far and away the biggest consumer]
or QZ:
Mexico has approved both a soda tax and a junk food tax, which it expects to generate some $16 billion annually. But there’s a deeper reason why the taxes, like large swaths of the Mexican populace, are so hefty: Something has to be done about Mexico’s eating habits.
Some 33% of Mexicans are obese and 71% are either obese or overweight, according to the country’s latest national health survey. According to 2008 data from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (pdf, pp. 73-79), Mexico at that point had the highest rate of obesity among large countries (though a number of small island states have far higher rates). Since then, though, the US obesity rate has overtaken Mexico’s, at 35.7%.
[Mexico and US competing in the Fat-limpics, or Fat & limping-ics]
[what do soda and junk food both have? HFCS]
so, let's look at the obesity stats from 1987 to today.
You could look for yourself, and I'll just put the
first and last years. But if you go to:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/the-official-us-obesity-rates-timeline
you can see the scariest timeline as you scroll down the page.
This is from the Centre for Disease Control, peeps.
If you did this in stats class, you can see that every state
has had ballooning numbers of ballooning people. Now ,
as you can see, Middle Southern America has got the
biggest bulge and some of them will be ready for another
colour 40%+ obesity rate. And this is a country with
50 million having no health care coverage.
Abby talks to a guy who spells it out.
Switzerland taxes sugar and subsidises fruit and veg.
US has highest economic freedom, fast food consumption and obesity.
They're related peeps.
sources
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/foo_sof_dri_con-food-soft-drink-consumption
http://qz.com/142544/the-worlds-fattest-major-country-consumes-an-astounding-amount-of-coca-cola-products/
