Horrendous Health Problems

I'll have to admit: I'm not a healthy eater, even though I know it should be so. After over three decades of research on the ways the body processes the massive amounts of junk put into our food, after years of watching friends have such horrendous health problems that were all directly associated with unhealthy eating habits, and after researching and knowing full well of the benefits of what a full and balanced diet can do for the body, I still can't shake my coffee and cigarette habits.

So it goes. I'm of the mind that healthful lifestyles are far, far too heavily promoted these days. Considering that we're over-populated, under-educated, and are woefully under- equipped to handle the education and health care needs of the country as it stands, I'm actually all for allowing the dedicated fatty foods lovers and sugar addicts to stuff their faces. The more quickly they die off, the easier it will be for the rest of us to get the sort of care we've all needed for the past decades.

Wait. That sort of harshness sounds starkly neo-conservative and a little classicistic. So it goes. Ironically enough, the folks who most need the health benefits that are offered by eating well and exercising regularly are economically unequipped to sustain healthful living. We have a welfare system that offers struggling families vouchers for fatty or otherwise ill-constructed food, a health care system that offers quality care only to those who can afford it (and consequently don't need it,) and a government who's too busy at the moment plugging holes in an economy that's still in dire, though gradually improving, straits.

It's no wonder at all that they haven't gutted the welfare system, isn't it? Doing so would do nothing but grow the population further, increasing the problems created by the lack of viable health care and educational professionals.

So eating healthily will do nothing to curb that, unless the welfare system is reformed in such a way that fresh, organic produce is included in the food packages sent to them.

On the other hand, we're not doing nearly enough to promote an active lifestyle among any facet of our society, either, and that's equally as important as (and less cost prohibitive than) this recent surge of healthy eating advocacy. The thing about the gradual surge in the health food industries has looked highly class-oriented to me. Consider: walking into a grocery store these days is expensive enough; but if you walk into a health food store and try to buy comparable items (organic milk versus Borden's, organic peanut butter, organic lettuce, etc.) versus walking into a more conventional grocery store to buy the same, if not quite as healthful items, you're looking at a significant and often-times prohibitve price difference.

In sum, the poor, who would benefit the most from a healthful diet are pushed from being able to make such a change by the thinness of their wallets. The irony shouldn't be lost on any of you.

Conversely speaking, getting people to walk more, to ride bikes, and to generally stay more active, cost little to nothing. I wonder, then why we haven't considered that in terms of making sure that our population emerges as a healthier one?