The Consequences of Loving Sugar

A video on the dangers of sugar has gone viral... over 800,000 people have viewed it since July 2010  Click here for link to video
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April 13, 2011

Is Sugar Toxic?

By GARY TAUBES - New York Times

On May 26, 2009, Robert Lustig gave a lecture called “Sugar: The Bitter Truth,” which was posted on YouTube the following July. Since then, it has been viewed well over 800,000 times, gaining new viewers at a rate of about 50,000 per month, fairly remarkable numbers for a 90-minute discussion of the nuances of fructose biochemistry and human physiology.


Lustig is a specialist on pediatric hormone disorders and the leading expert in childhood obesity at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine, which is one of the best medical schools in the country. He published his first paper on childhood obesity a dozen years ago, and he has been treating patients and doing research on the disorder ever since.


The viral success of his lecture, though, has little to do with Lustig’s impressive credentials and far more with the persuasive case he makes that sugar is a “toxin” or a “poison,” terms he uses together 13 times through the course of the lecture, in addition to the five references to sugar as merely “evil.” And by “sugar,” Lustig means not only the white granulated stuff that we put in coffee and sprinkle on cereal — technically known as sucrose — but also high-fructose corn syrup, which has already become without Lustig’s help what he calls “the most demonized additive known to man.”  more    

Obesity Epidemic is Everywhere

It might be easier to say that the kids in Mexico are full force into an obesity epidemic.  However, all we need to do is look at ourselves.  The Superintendent of the Houston Independent School District sent out a memo this week informing his employees that 75% of all H.I.S.D. teachers are obese.  This is in the U.S. - not Mexico.  Maybe the L.A. Times should write an article about overweight teachers... (I also think that the overuse of student testing has stressed the teachers out so much that one of their few consolations is to eat more and eat badly)

While the American diet is bringing us all to the bring of our mortality, the kids in Mexico are gaining too much weight from eating American type food.
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Mexico faces soaring childhood obesity rate
Mexico’s biggest food worry used to be hunger, but now it’s in a quandary over how to get its children to lay off unhealthful snacks and exercise more. That is more complicated than they sound.

April 22, 2010Ken Ellingwood
Los Angeles Times
reporting from mexico city — The midmorning bell at Technical Secondary School No. 14 sets off a rush for the campus snack bar, where students jostle for chocolate bars, chili-flavored lollipops, packaged popcorn and sweetened fruit drinks.

There's yogurt and bottled water, but it doesn't seem much in demand
"Potato chips taste great," enthuses Daniel Cuevas, 13, clutching a bag of chips and a bottle of orange drink.

After class, youngsters are greeted by a phalanx of sidewalk vendors hawking jelly-filled cakes, ice cream, mayonnaise-slathered ears of corn, french fries topped with cheese and cans of soda to wash it down.

Then they head home for midafternoon lunch, the main meal of the day in Mexico.

Mexican health officials say overeating and poor dietary habits have contributed to a fast-rising childhood obesity rate, behind only the United States for highest in the world. One-quarter of all school-age Mexicans, and more than one-third of adolescents, are overweight or obese. (More than two-thirds of grownups are too heavy... link to complete article

25¢ to avoid Diabetes - COCA-COLA is NOT Food

Today as I was driving back from the hospital to see my brother, who just had a leg amputated because of diabetes (he is 48), I was listening to KPFT-FM - there was a show on childhood obesity.

A physician from Baylor Medical School, a Houston City Councilman, and another public health advocate (I didn't get her name or who she was) were discussing the proposed 25 cent tax on soft drinks. The politician had the gaul to say that taxing a food source is unreasonable for children in poor neighborhoods, he said that the tax would limit their food choices. The problem is that soft drinks (Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Sprite, Fanta etc) are not a food source. They are just a sugar source, and a bad one at that - full of High Fructose Corn Syrup. The doctor really disappointed me when he did not whole heartedly support the tax...

Even more depressing was that the KPFT announcer said he was also against the tax.

I wonder how some people can say things like taxing soft drinks would be bad for kids. How can this be if these drinks are directly responsible for the obesity epidemic we are experiencing. Drinking plain water is much healthier, cheaper, and non-fattening.

link to image

American Fast Food leads Immigrant Kids to Illness

Photograph of a Botero Painting

As we know, obesity in children often leads to early diagnosis of diabetes. If your child develops diabetes, he/she will have to stop eating at McDonalds, Burger King, and Jack in the Box. So either change the diet now, or you will have to later. The consequence of a continued poor diet after diagnosis is lethal.

The study cited below is about immigrants. But this is not the only group affected. Just go to any suburban mall and you will see how many small children may end up diabetic in a few years. Click here for link to report.

- Sons of Immigrants Have High Obesity Levels, Report Finds

By Tara Bahrampour

Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 4, 2009

The sons of immigrants to the United States suffer from alarmingly high levels of childhood obesity, according to a new report funded by the Foundation for Child Development.

Thirty-four percent of kindergarten-age immigrant boys are obese or overweight, compared with 25 percent of the sons of native-born Americans, according to an analysis of data collected by the U.S. Education Department. By eighth grade, that number rises to 49 percent, compared with 33 percent among natives. No similar discrepancy was found among girls.

Adult immigrants do not tend to become overweight until they have been in the United States for a while and become more acculturated, but "children from the newest, least acculturated immigrant families tend to be the most at risk of obesity," said the report, "Moving to the Land of Milk and Cookies," which was released this week. It relied on a federal study that tracked 21,000 children from kindergarten to eighth grade, a quarter of whom were children of immigrants.

The higher level of obesity among sons of immigrants cut across socioeconomic levels and was most pronounced among those whose parents do not speak English, the study found.

It was most prevalent among newly arrived Hispanic immigrants and non-Hispanic white immigrants. Black children of immigrants do not face a higher rate of obesity than their native counterparts, and the problem does not show up among Asian children of new arrivals, although it does appear among children of Asian immigrants who have been in the United States for 15 or 20 years, said Jennifer Van Hook of Pennsylvania State University, the report's lead author. link to complete WP article