Land of the Fry
by Elizabeth Kaufman
The benefits to living in one of the most developed nations of the world are inarguable. Between high GDP, the fulfillment of the American dream behind every corner, and some of the best (if not expensive) health care in the world, there are few drawbacks. However, this does not preclude the possibility of critiques upon the current system.
Certainly, the ability to choose is one of the pinnacles of American culture of which most are so proud. This choice comes with a responsibility first and foremost of ourselves. With rising healthcare costs and insurance premiums for both patients and doctors, patients have a vested interest in remaining healthy to keep their costs down. However, the influx of information about how this can be achieved is fraught with contradictions the average consumer is unable to process. Sure, the public is bombarded with the nutritional tables and told to “eat healthy” and “get enough exercise,” but how exactly can this be fulfilled?
Just recently, the New York Times ran an article condemning the use of baby formula to feed children. It caused panic among mothers new and old over what they had been told was a safe alternative to the sometimes painful, difficult, and impractical natural method. In another study found on msnbc.com, the berry, once promoted as a cancer fighting “superfood,” was called into question about its previous status. Not to mention that there are more things one should eat daily to prevent all sorts of ailments than actual portions of food to be eaten! One would take in an excess of twenty-five pills in supplemental form to help prevent, treat, and cure a variety of ailments.
And even exercising now leads to confusion. What used to be a recommendation of three twenty-minute bouts of vigorous sweating has turned into five day a week forty-minute marathons of heart-pounding exercise. Weights not included. But then, some exercises are not recommended for those with a variety of ailments. And those above and below a certain age are told to do certain types of exercise and keep their heart rates at varying levels of pumping. All these different instructions are confusing to say the least, if not prone to discouraging novices from even beginning!
It seems that an entire day must be devoted in order to properly calculate all the milligrams and calcium and vitamin c, as well as grams of proteins and carbohydrates and fats. After all the calculations for food alone, then one has to begin on the fitness routine prescribed by “experts.”
What is remarkable about all this advice is that developing nations are still enormously overweight and obese. The appearance of advice and experts hasn’t turned this country into one of slim, healthy people. At some point, to have a healthy population, “experts” will need to create guidelines that are easy enough to follow by the general population---especially for those who don’t know where to start today. Until then, the land of the free will remain the land of the fry.
