Back in the day we didn’t used to have nutrition labels on our food. I find it quite ironic that as we have started receiving more and more information about being “obese” that the obesity rate in America continues to climb. For the first time in twenty years the FDA is making new changes to the required food labels, and I tell you this campaign has it all wrong.
According to the FDA’s deputy commisioner for foods and veterinary medicine, Micheal R Taylor, in order “To help address obesity, one of the most important public health problems facing our country, the proposed label would drive attention to calories and serving sizes.” In layman’s terms they are making the calories and serving sizes gigantic on the label because we could only be getting fatter as country because the print was too tiny on the first label.
Despite what so many weight loss gurus will tell you, being at a healthy weight is so much more complicated than calories in and calories out. If it were a mere matter of reading the labels on food packaging don’t you think that we would’ve lost weight as a population over the last 20 years or so. Instead Americans keep getting fatter and fatter.
Instead of spending millions, if not billions, of dollars requiring these new labels why doesn’t the government spend money on educating and empowering consumers. Not just educating us on topics paid for by the highest bidder. Most “public ad” campaigns are paid for this or that commission in order to sell more product.
Weight is hardly ever just about calories and reading food labels. It’s about learning what your body truly needs and understanding when you are feeding emotions instead of hunger. The money being wasted on these new labels would be better spent on campaigns that dealt with mental health and intuitive eating program that teach you to get back in tune with your natural ability to eat.
The money would also be better spent creating whole nutritious foods. Not food full of things that you can’t even pronounce. The lack of labeling isn’t the issue. The lack of whole unaltered foods is the problem. Why do you think more and more children are being born with food allergies? Maybe if we stopped subsidizing things like high fructose corn syrup and other products like that we could spend more money on supporting farmers that actually grow REAL food.
Until our government is willing to not let private funders influence public policy, and truly take the public’s health into consideration, we are never going to stop the “war on obesity.” They keep telling us to lose weight but then send money to projects that help keep us fat. Talk about an abusive relationship. As far as I am concerned, I am breaking up with this so called war on obesity and learning to eat because my body needs nourishment, and to be active because my body craves movement. In other words I am gonna keep being awesome, hope you all decide to join me. As far as the FDA, they can put their new charts in their pipe and smoke it for all I care.
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