A Nation Addicted to Sugar

Many people ask me what I have found interesting about the United States as a foreigner who has recently moved here from the "third world". At first I didn't know what to say. Mostly because my siblings had lived here before me and my parents had been here a few times and all the mysteries had unraveled for me. It wasn't as shiny for me as it could have been for others. It was kinda disappointing in a way because I was expecting some place like Europe and I was let down.

I always give this example to my friends. In America everything is mass produced. It is a Capitalist system so it is natural to be this way. When you go to a store, there is no such thing as buying 1 pen, or 1 lighter. No, you'd have to buy a whole pack of lighters that if you're not a smoker, won't know how to use before they expire! So is the case with the buildings. It seems like they had decided to build a bunch of buildings and scatter them in one place. Especially the shopping centers (not sure if they're called centers) but the places like Target, Best Buy, Trader Joe's, TJ Maxx, and all the like that are accumulated in one place in every city that you go in the states. You can't find a super market to buy your every day needs, except for few seven-elevens here and there. And another interesting thing that I knew of before moving here, as I had read it as preparation for TOEFL, was how the car companies had cast a shadow on public transportation system and made America a public-transportation-free country! So, basically what it means is that if you don't own a car, you're screwed! (Except for Amherst which we have been blessed with an extensive free bus system which was quite surprising for my dad because he wasn't expecting something like that from America...a "free" "bus" system?!)

It was also the case in the metropolitan. New York City was a slap in the face for me! (Except for Time's Square which was as awesome as I had heard it to be!). *[Although, this changed after visiting there for the second time a few weeks back, after writing this post, so the above part doesn't apply as harshly as before!]* We had been through other cities as well: Indianapolis (which as I had explained before looked like a city from a futuristic SciFi movie where everything had been destroyed by robots and smoke was coming out of factories...a very depressing scene it was), Boston (which was better than NYC for me and restored my hope in finding a nice city in the US but still wasn't what I was hoping for), St. Louis (this one actually has two parts...the part where you are entering from Illinois is as bad as any other one that I explained, but then there is the western part of it which is actually quite nice and in some parts even resembles that of a French or European city...even the shopping centers didn't look mass produced there and were "real" buildings!), and Cincinnati which we only passed through but actually seemed to be pretty! Then there is San Francisco which by far is the best I have seen, mostly because of its awesome whether (not for everyone if you're not a rain-loving person) and the fact that it reminded me greatly of Istanbul, one of the cities I worship.

The second surprise for me which so far is the biggest mind-blowing one, is that in TV advertisements, the companies use the name of the companies they have competition with and praise themselves against them, which I find quite odd. I don't watch TV so it hadn't hit me until recently when I was watching TV and this commercial came on where it said something like Verizon is much better and faster than AT&T! "What the hell?!" that was me gasping! Then another one came on, which said our brand of toilet papers is much better than that of X's (I can't remember the name). I had never seen such a thing in my life. I had seen commercials where brands would claim they are the best or the pioneers or something, but I hadn't seen one that would actually use their counterparts name as reference! Again...Capitalism!

This post wasn't supposed to have such a long intro! I just wanted to give you an example of the things I found odd in the US. But I'll get to the point now.

It is no secret for the world that the US is dealing with an obesity epidemic. As a nutritionist working on my project (sleep being a mediator between nutrition and health related problems), I had to do an extensive literature review. Almost all the articles that I read started with a statement like this: 'Two-thirds of Americans are overweight and one-third of that population are obese (only 1/3 being normal weight). Over the past 3 decades, the prevalence of overweight/obesity has tripled and the number of people suffering from diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease has gone up in accordance. The amount of sleep people get has seen a one-hour drop in duration on average, making more people sleep-deprived.'

So this raises few concerns. First of all people are sleep-deprived. America is a place where you have to work your a** off, otherwise you're not getting anywhere. Also, it may be the only developed country in the Western world, not providing paid leave for its working population, which can help in the promotion of sleep deprivation phenomena.

Secondly, why are people gaining so much weight? It has been said that the average size for women went from 8 back in the 50's to 14 in the beginning of 21st century. So, what has changed in the lives of the people living here that has made this transition towards unhealthy lifestyle raising all these health concerns?

Let me first start elaborating the answer to the above question with the activity aspect. 30 years ago was about the same time that computers made their break through leading to more sedentary jobs and lifestyle from the labor intensive jobs that dominated the job market before that. Also, with the growth in population and expansion of cities, more people had to commute to work using cars and other transportation systems instead of walking. So what we had was less physically demanding jobs, more cars, and a computer-run world. But this couldn't be the only reason, right? Because the so called "office jobs" had started to take over the country starting in probably 50 years before the time we're talking about. If the diet had stayed the same, people most probably would've started to gain weight anyway but unfortunately this wasn't the case.

At the same time, since more people were working, they had less time to prepare foods at home. It used to be that women would stay at home and make food but now they were starting to work as much as men did. So they had to find other venues to meet their needs. And here enter the food companies and restaurants.

Now we get to nutrition. By that time, almost all kinds of foods and food products were available. Food companies were trying to come up with new products that would make their products special in a way that would attract more people. We used to have biscuits, but let's make them sweeter to make it more palatable! People don't want to buy plain yogurt? Let's put a pound of sugar in it and throw in few pieces of fruit and call it fruit flavored! People want to buy coffee on their way to work, but they're tired of drinking the same black coffee everyday. So, let's make different kinds and throw in a bucket of sugar to give people the energy boost they need in the morning! And the list goes on with coke and other sugar-sweetened beverages.

But sugar wasn't the only problem. With the rising demand on store-bought microwavable foods and fast foods with their drive-thru, again companies had to add extra pinch of salt and extra fat to make their foods more delicious and attract more customers.

If you don't know how the taste buds work, let me explain it a bit. The taste buds are really flexible. They get used to the taste, whether it is sweetness or saltiness, and if you get used to consuming more sugar, the less sweetened food products will taste bland, whereas it might taste quite sweet for people who are not used to consuming that much sugar. And so is the case with other tastes, especially salt.

I was also watching a TED talk on YouTube, where Malcolm Gladwell was talking about how Howard Moskowitz has revolutionized the food industry by consulting different food brands and telling them how people need different and more diverse food options and how they can increase their profits by bringing more options to the stores (you can watch the video here). Having a more diverse market place is another reason that I think might be contributing to this matter and not only does it make people buy more stuff and try different brands but it has also led to a competition between companies which again have made them put more "unhealthy" ingredients in their products to make them more appealing.

One other factor is the increase in screening time. Nowadays, almost everyone either owns a TV or a computer and many people spend a considerable amount of their awake time in front of their monitors and don't even get me started on video games! The increase in screening time affects weight in two different ways. The first one, as you might well be aware of, is the fact that it increases sedentary behavior. But studies have shown that it also can cause increase in food consumption because people usually like to munch on something while they're watching TV (as I do too!), but also the food commercials they see on TV or online can also cause consumption of more food especially that the foods that we see in the commercials are usually the non-healthy ones.

However, in recent years more attention has been brought to nutrition and its importance in health and more people are getting more conscious about the adverse effects of poor diets. In accordance, food companies are now trying to introduce new lines of products with different labels of "fat-free", "sugar-free", "diet", "zero", and so and so. But what is wrong with this action? Why doesn't it change anything? Well, again there are two aspects to this. First of all, the so called diet-versions are not actually as healthy as they seem to be. Many of the food products advertised to be "fat-free" or "low-calorie" are packed with sugar or sometimes with salt. Secondly, some people think that it's only the calorie that counts and even if you consume 1200 calories of pure sugar, just because you've cut down your calorie count, it will make you slim down. Wrong! The proportion of different nutrients is as important or even more important dare I say, than only reducing your energy intake.

The same goes for foods prepared in restaurants, fast foods, and store-bought ready-to-eat foods.
One other explanation could be that people simply don't want to choose the diet-versions and they prefer the regular-sodas and foods.

We had a course last semester about minerals and one of the students had a presentation on Sodium (on of the main minerals in the structure of salt) and she had done some research and had found out that even in the foods offered in Panera Bread, which counts as a "healthy" restaurant, the minimum amount of sodium found in their menu is more than 800 mg! (the maximum amount recommended for daily consumption is 2400 mg for the whole population and about 1400 for those prone to hypertension!). I have nothing against this restaurant chain of course. I still consider them to be one of the healthiest but I just wanted to give you an example of how things are out there. The same student also told us that she had spent some time in a culinary school and while she was there they had taught them that whenever you taste a food you've prepared and it seems to have the perfect taste for salt, throw in another pinch! That's how chefs have been taught to prepare your food guys and that's probably why you keep going back because there's no argument in the fact that more salt and more sugar and even more fat make food more tasty! I know, I know...it's not fair but the truth is bitter!

Another thing is that artificial sweeteners such as Aspartam, used in diet sodas, don't actually contain sugar and don't have any adverse side-effects but they have a hidden down-side to them. When your brain detects sweetness, it signals your body "get ready, sugar is on its way!" But when you trick it and it doesn't detect glucose afterwards, it starts wondering where it is! But it has already started the process right? So when body asks where the hell is my sugar? Your brain says I'll check and get back to you. It's an embarrassment for it...he can't look bad! So he pushes you to consume sugar so that the strike would end...and that's how you crave more sugar after consuming foods containing artificial sweeteners and if you don't resist the urge then you will eventually consume more sweet foods subconsciously, again leading the way to diabetes and weight gain.

Another reason why with the increase in knowledge of food and nutrition nothing is changing is politics. Yes...that damn politics again. It's so sneaky that it even finds it way into your daily life food consumption. Many people have tried to warn against the high rates of meat consumption (it's no secret that Americans are a meat-loving nation) and sweeteners but they haven't been successful because the meat industry and the corn producers (the product subsidized in the US and I believe the leading agricultural product, and corn syrup being used in high quantities as sweetener) have lobbied against this. They would experience huge loss in their profits and who would want that?!

Anyway, what prompted me to write this piece was because the other day we went out for lunch with my friends and they ordered a plate of chicken, beef, and ribs, and as a side to their order was corn "bread" in their plates. They tasted it and said is this supposed to be our dessert?!

I mean it was that sweet! We would call that a cake not a bread...it's past the sweet limit for a bread. And they were supposed to eat it as a bread with their lunch which was odd for all of us. And we started discussing how the Americans are addicted to sugar and the whopping amounts of sugar they consume.

I even remember the first semester I was in school here, I had taken this course called Nutritional Problems in the US and we were discussing yogurt in class where the professor was saying any yogurt containing more than 12 grams of sugar actually has sugar added to it and is not plain. Then one of the guys turned to her and said "who would eat plain yogurt? It's so bitter...it's gross!" My jaw was literally dropped! What do you mean bitter?! It's yogurt! It's like saying...I don't know...why does cheese taste like cheese! That was the moment it dawned on me what the nutritional problems in the US were stemming from...he wasn't at fault...he had grown in a place where sweet-flavored yogurts had taken over. I also feel the need to point out that the person making this statement was actually a grad student in kinesiology, a person who had studied in a health-related major...so you can imagine how the other people living here who have no background on health issues must be thinking like.

I don't know if you know this but actually the Oreo and KitKat produced in the US, have higher sugar contents compared to the same brand produced in Europe!

My final conclusion is that nothing would change unless politicians decide to put their foot down, and together with the help of nutritionists and other health organizations prepare a better environment for a healthier generation. Otherwise the consequences are unimaginable. They also need to provide a better environment, a safe one, so people can exercise and be more physically active and have incentives to make people motivated, which is quite a big realm which I don't dare to delve into right now.

By the way, if you're wondering about the definition of "whopping", I had prepared a presentation for one of my courses last semester and I had to prepare some background statistics on the problem in hand. So, I looked for the statistics on medical costs for diabetes in the US, and the number was...ready? It was roughly 109 billion dollars. Yes, billion...with a B!