[Mb-civic] Diabetes and the trash food industry - Derrick Z.
Jackson - Boston Globe Op-Ed
William Swiggard
swiggard at comcast.net
Wed Jan 11 04:03:22 PST 2006
Diabetes and the trash food industry
By Derrick Z. Jackson | January 11, 2006 | The Boston Globe
TYPE 2 DIABETES is sweeping so rapidly through America we need not waste
time giving children bicycles. Just roll them a wheelchair. Forget the
basketballs and baseballs. Give them Braille flash cards. The next thing
you know, iPods, Game Boys and Xboxes will come with glucose meters,
beeping ''Sorry to interrupt your song or movie, but it will not
continue until you use me."
One of the saddest, emerging facts about Type 2 diabetes is how it is
robbing children of their childhood. It is well on its way to dropping
the overall life expectancy of Americans. This grim world of
amputations, blindness, heart disease and kidney failure, once assumed
to be confined to those with wrinkles, has descended into the tender world.
We have created this monster by allowing trash food marketers to prey on
our children and by letting our children disappear into video screens.
The number of Americans with type-2 diabetes, the kind that can be
controlled by exercise and eating right, has exploded from 5.8 million
in 1980 to 18.2 million today, according to the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention.
An American child born in 2000 has a 1 in 3 chance of contracting
diabetes in his lifetime. An African American has a 2 in 5 chance. At
current rates, every other Latina born in 2000 will get the disease.
Fast food, soda and sugar snack companies are well represented in the
Fortune 500, but the costs on the other end are staggering.
The CDC estimates that diabetes costs the United States $92 billion in
medical costs and $40 billion in indirect costs, such as restricted or
lost worker productivity. While diabetics now make up 6.3 percent of the
population, the American Diabetes Association estimates that the disease
accounts for 19 percent of health spending in the United States.
So far, none of that has captured the imagination of Americans outside
of doctors, public health officials, and those school districts that
have kicked out the soda machines. That is, except for pharmacies, super
stores and the medical supplies industry which are gearing up for the
miserable fallout.
In one of its 2005 reports, the marketing information firm IRI said that
sufferers of diabetes, obesity, and high cholesterol are ''ideal targets
for retailer and manufacturer programs aimed at driving sales growth.
Many ailments such as diabetes and high cholesterol are regularly
treated with prescription medication. For retailers and manufacturers,
this translates to frequent shopping trips and thus, countless
opportunities to build relationships and drive non-prescription behavior."
In the case of diabetics, the ''relationship" would be built around
low-sugar, low-carbohydrate and low-fat foods and beverages. It also
means that the expanding racks for diabetes management supplies, such as
insulin, syringes and blood sugar meters also mean more customers who
buy other items in the stores. ''This is a hotly competitive area for
retailers," Kerrylyn Whalen Rodriguez, a diabetes specialist for
ShopKo's pharmacies, told the trade publication Retail Merchandiser.
''You are serving a niche that is needed for patient care but is also a
huge sales driver. It's not just the right thing to do, it's profitable."
Ed Staffa, vice president of member services for the National
Association of Chain Drug Stores, added in Retail Merchandiser, ''These
are repeat patients. On an ongoing basis, the same individuals purchase
products month in, month out. If you are able to engage them as a
patient initially, you have their patronage for the rest of their life."
While business waits for the diseased to fall to them, the greater story
is tragic. The nation our children are being born into is one in which
they are more likely to be acquainted with sugar test strips than final
exams in college.
The oversexed marketing and perfect bodies thrown at youth in the name
of fashion will become a mockery as the young grow old before the age of
50, with brittle nails, callouses, over-sensitive skin, balding scalps,
punctured bodies and of course, lost limbs.
The nation has not yet had the courage to stand up against trash food
and has forgotten how to send our kids out to play. The bodies of our
young are becoming trash and there is no time to play.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/01/11/diabetes_and_the_trash_food_industry/
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