Josephine Lassailly, jl372@uakron.edu
It is no secret that the United States is known for having a questionable or different approach to American heath and Health care. The abundant stereotypes on how Americans look and eat have always been prevalent, as well as the overwhelming attention surrounding the insurance industry. It is important to discuss their relationship to help us understand the matter. Some of the top running diseases in the US are diabetes, cancer and heart disease as reported by the CDC (2021). All of these conditions can have many different causes, but the most common sticks out.
There has been extensive research on the link between diet and disease along with its causes. The most notable culprit is processed meat and snacks (11/22/2023 CNN) that Americans know and love. Research has shown that overconsumption of red meat and animal products increases the risk of cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. It’s no coincidence that the most consumed food products cause the conditions that affect most Americans to this day. You might be thinking that with all this research being done, the proper measures to warn American citizens would be taken. But Unfortunately, the public is still unaware of this pandemic. One way to bring awareness is through American Association pages for these leading diseases.
For example, the American Diabetes Association’s website (https://diabetes.org/) has a “food and nutrition” section featuring a plethora of meal options; however almost every recipe has red meat or form of meat in some way. But the Harvard TH Chan Newspaper put out an article (October 19, 2023) stating that red and processed meat increase the risk of type 2 diabetes. Additionally, in a Medical News Today article (March 13, 2023) it is recommended for people currently affected with diabetes to gear towards other meat alternatives than red and processed meat. So why would these big Health Associations willingly promote the very product that causes people to get these diseases?
Looking deeper, the corporate sponsors for these associations are meat producing companies, meaning that they would have a reason to promote recipes with these products. However, I would hope that as a Health organization the maintenance of up to date information about diet would triumph the bias that comes with a sponsorship.
My inspiration for this article was because we teens have easy access to heavily processed foods that are shown to increase diseases. Especially at AECHS where University stores like the Pod are stocked up with all these products. It can be hard to make the right choices when we don’t know the consequences, so It’s important to be aware. I’m not implying you will become diabetic or prone with heart disease or cancer if you purchase a bag of chips from the Pod. But, I think that moderation is key and that although accessibility is a benefit, the long-term cons outweigh the short-lived pros.
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