{"id":98044,"date":"2021-08-31T07:38:24","date_gmt":"2021-08-31T12:38:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/?p=98044"},"modified":"2021-08-31T07:38:24","modified_gmt":"2021-08-31T12:38:24","slug":"should-the-us-government-regulate-what-unhealthy-americans-eat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/2021\/08\/31\/should-the-us-government-regulate-what-unhealthy-americans-eat\/","title":{"rendered":"Should the US Government Regulate What Unhealthy Americans Eat?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"VOA \u2014 Nine out of 10 American adults are metabolically unhealthy, and much of that comes down to the food they eat, according to the experts, who say it might be time for the government to step in and regulate what Americans put in their mouths.<\/p>\n

“This is the only segment of our economy where we have the majority of products being knowingly dangerous, and we leave it up to the consumer,”\u00a0says Dr. Dariush\u00a0Mozaffarian, a cardiologist who is the dean of the Tufts\u00a0Friedman School of Nutrition Science\u00a0and\u00a0Policy.\u00a0“There’s no way we leave car safety, home safety, mattress safety, cellphone safety,\u00a0every other aspect of the economy\u00a0\u2014\u00a0we don’t leave it up to the consumer. If there’s stuff\u00a0that’s\u00a0hurting people, we get rid of it.”<\/p>\n

To assess metabolic health<\/a>, doctors\u00a0measure\u00a0blood sugar, cholesterol,\u00a0blood pressure\u00a0and other indicators.\u00a0People who are in poor metabolic health are at increased risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and other serious health issues.<\/p>\n

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\"A<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>
A Type 2 diabetes patient gives himself an insulin shot before eating dinner at his home in Glenarden, Maryland, July 15, 2021.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“We think of being healthy as the norm and being sick as something that’s unusual,\u00a0and what’s happened over time is that diet-related diseases have caused many more of us to be sick than are healthy, especially among adults,”\u00a0Mozaffarian\u00a0says.\u00a0“When you have\u00a0nine\u00a0out of 10 adults being metabolically unhealthy, largely due to diet-related illnesses, you know we have a broken system.”<\/p>\n

Americans’\u00a0consumption of junk food\u00a0isn’t\u00a0helping. A 17-year study<\/a> found that junk food \u2014 primarily processed foods with little nutritional value that are high in sugar,\u00a0salt\u00a0and fat \u2014 account for 1 in every\u00a05 calories\u00a0for children and 1 in every\u00a07 calories\u00a0for adults.<\/p>\n

Those foods can be hard to resist because they\u00a0contain\u00a0things the body needs.<\/p>\n

‘Evolution couldn’t care less’<\/strong><\/p>\n

“Junk foods are basically sweet, salt and fat, and these are things that are very necessary to live, they’re energy providing,”\u00a0says Linda Bartoshuk, a professor of\u00a0food\u00a0science\u00a0and\u00a0human\u00a0nutrition at the University of Florida.\u00a0“And\u00a0sweet is\u00a0very important because glucose is the only fuel the brain can use, so nature is very interested in having us want these.”<\/p>\n

The problem, she says, is that our bodies are not built to tell us when enough is enough.<\/p>\n

“As we grow older and get past the age of having children, frankly, evolution couldn’t care less what happens to us,”\u00a0Bartoshuk says.\u00a0“And then the intake of these things that were so important when we were young becomes hazardous. We overdo it.\u00a0We take in too much salt, too much sugar, too much fat, and it produces all kinds of illnesses.”<\/p>\n

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\"Junk<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>
Junk foods usually contain sugar, salt and fat, which are necessary to live, but humans don’t have a natural shut-off valve when it comes to these ingredients.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In\u00a0the 1960s, the United States focused on eradicating hunger;\u00a0in the 1990s, food insecurity.\u00a0Mozaffarian\u00a0is among the\u00a0U.S. health experts calling for a shift in focus<\/a> from\u00a0“food security”\u00a0to\u00a0“nutrition security”\u00a0to address the lack of health among American adults.<\/p>\n

Prescription for a healthy meal<\/strong><\/p>\n

He’d\u00a0like to see the federal government take the lead by improving nutrition in already existing food programs\u00a0such as\u00a0the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program\u00a0(SNAP<\/a>),\u00a0which\u00a0provides\u00a0food\u00a0assistance\u00a0to needy\u00a0families; school lunches;\u00a0and Meals on Wheels<\/a>, home-delivered meals for older Americans.<\/p>\n

Even though Americans are increasingly unhealthy, the United States spent\u00a0$3.8 trillion<\/a>\u00a0on health care in 2019. Mozaffarian\u00a0says\u00a0it’s\u00a0time to integrate food nutrition into health care.<\/p>\n

“There’s very straightforward, evidence-based ways to do that through, for example, produce prescriptions,\u00a0where if you have a certain medical condition and you need healthy food, the doctor writes a prescription,\u00a0and you get healthy foods partially or fully paid for,”\u00a0he says.<\/p>\n

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\"Meals<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>
Meals on Wheels of Rhode Island driver Jim Stotler, left, delivers a meal to Rhonda Valoir, 66, at her apartment in Pawtucket, Nov. 20, 2020.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That approach would include medically tailored meals,\u00a0home-delivered\u00a0healthy\u00a0meals, and\u00a0nutrition education for health care workers, including\u00a0the future\u00a0doctors currently in medical school.<\/p>\n

New nutrition agenda?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The last time The White House held a conference<\/a> on food, nutrition and health was in 1969. The panel\u00a0advised\u00a0President Richard Nixon on ending hunger and malnutrition among poor people in the United States and influenced America’s nutrition agenda for decades afterward.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Special\u00a0Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants,\u00a0and Children (commonly known as the\u00a0WIC\u00a0program<\/a>), the\u00a0National\u00a0School Lunch Program,\u00a0and the setting\u00a0of\u00a0dietary guidelines for Americans were all results\u00a0of that 1969 conference.\u00a0U.S.\u00a0Senator\u00a0Cory Booker and\u00a0U.S.\u00a0Representative\u00a0James McGovern are among those calling for a second White House conference<\/a> on food and nutrition.<\/p>\n

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\"A<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>
A student eats her school lunch at Wilder Elementary School in Louisville, Kentucky, August 11, 2021.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the meantime, both Bartoshuk and\u00a0Mozaffarian\u00a0would like to see more money put\u00a0toward\u00a0research.<\/p>\n

“Into appetite, into food preferences,”\u00a0says Bartoshuk.\u00a0“NIH<\/a>\u00a0(National Institutes of\u00a0Health) does not spend as much research on nutrition as I think it ought to. It’s not molecular biology, it’s not cancer, and it doesn’t get what I think is its fair share of funding.”<\/p>\n

And while\u00a0Mozaffarian\u00a0believes nutritional education is important,\u00a0he\u00a0says repairing the\u00a0food\u00a0Americans eat\u00a0is most critical.<\/p>\n

“We’re going to need to fix the food right so that parents and kids who are busy and out wanting to enjoy their lives can get nutritious, affordable food,”\u00a0he says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VOA \u2014 Nine out of 10 American adults are metabolically unhealthy, and much of that comes down to the food they eat, according to the experts, who say it might be time for the government to step in and regulate what Americans put in their mouths. “This is the only segment of our economy where […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":98045,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-recposts"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"en","enabled_languages":["fa","en"],"languages":{"fa":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98044"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98044\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98047,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98044\/revisions\/98047"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}