Читать книгу The Alkalizing Diet - Istvan Fazekas - Страница 6

AMERICANS SHOULD BE THE HEALTHIEST PEOPLE ON THE PLANET. WE spend the most money per capita on health care and have the most medical technology at our disposal of any industrialized nation. But we are not—not really. We are getting more obese, and the risk of resultant pathologies because of our expanding frames is also increasing. A January 2002 Harris pollⁱ states the following:

Fully 33% [of Americans] are now 20% overweight, a reasonable measure of obesity, compared to 15% in 1983, 16% in 1990, and 22% in 1995. In other words, obesity has more than doubled from less than one-sixth of the population eighteen years ago to one-third today. [Author’s emphasis]

The idea of one-third of 293 million people being obese—about 98 million Americans—is a startling statistic.ⁱⁱ Is our ever-growing weight problem the main cause of our nation’s health concern? It is our overall lifestyle, with diet being the number two factor right behind the nefarious nicotine nemesis.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, in 2000 the most common actual causes of death in the United States were tobacco use (435,000), poor diet and physical inactivity (400,000), alcohol consumption (85,000), microbial agents (e.g., influenza and pneumonia, 75,000), toxic agents (e.g., pollutants and asbestos, 55,000), motor vehicle accidents (43,000), firearms (29,000), sexual behavior (20,000), and illicit use of drugs (17,000).ⁱⁱⁱ

Almost a million people a year die as a direct result of poor diet, lack of physical activity, smoking, and excessive drinking! (See Figure 1.) Those statistics are likely quite conservative. We have a skyrocketing obesity rate and appear to be victims of our own advancements in comfort and convenience. When health problems are the result, we rely exceedingly on technology to aid us in our time of disease. Often at the expense of common sense, to create the perception of health, we defy the laws of wellness for the quick fix. As a humorous Billy Crystal character from a popular Saturday night comedy show used to say, “It is much better to look good than to feel good, dahling.” This may be the new national motto.

This is from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC):^iv

Figure 1. Most common causes of death in the United States, 1999*

* Rates are age adjusted to 2000 total U.S. population.

Not only are the older generations falling into (or never crawling out of) bad habits, but we have a whole new generation of Americans who see the world of health within very inadequate parameters. The primary concern is that we are breeding an entire generation of youth who are so suspicious or ignorant of the healing power of the natural world that fresh fruits and vegetables will appear as archaic to them as muzzle-loaders and ball bearings appear to the modern soldier.