What's Causing the Obesity???

There are seemingly a zillion sources of our obesity problem in America and the developed world. While genetics is a big part of it, the environment sure doesn't help. For starters, look on the label of virtually any food item other than fresh produce (not packaged) or fresh meat. What do you find? Why, SUGAR, of course! Of course, sugar has synonyms like "high fructose corn syrup", sucrose, dextrose, glucose, fructose, lactose, and so on. Sugar makes up 25 percent of the calories we consume on average. And it's completely unnecessary, given the invention of Splenda, a derivative of sugar.

It's obvious that we can remove a quarter of the calories from the food supply just by removing all the sugar. That would just have to help. Why is there all the sugar in the food? Easy. It's insanely cheap. At a dime a pound on the commodies futures markets, if a food company wants a better tasting product all they need to do is add a couple pennies' worth of sugar to the product. The company profits, to the detriment of society as a whole - market failure a la "tragedy of the commons".

The _only_ solution is to tax sugar at the source like we do tobacco and drinkable alcohol, two unhealthy things that are taxed (heavily) for that reason. The optimum plan for a government is to buy the patent for Splenda and make it public domain to make it insanely cheap, then tax sugar until it's cheaper to use Splenda than sugar. All the pharmaceutical companies could make Splenda, adding competition, and making it cheaper. All the while sugar is taxed to help fuel a healthcare system or subsidise bariatric surgery.

Removal of sugar wouldn't be a cure-all (nothing is anyways) but it'll sure help as it removes empty calories from the food supply. An immediate health benefit is that it'll make it easier to treat diabetes, which is really simply susceptibility to sugar poisoning anyways. Removing sugar wouldn't remove starch in food. Diabetics would have to be careful with starchy foods still as starch de-polymerises into a tsunami of glucose with one enzyme.

Of course, there's the exercise end of the equation or maybe its lack thereof. Most people don't move around enough. But would getting everyone to exercise help? Yes, but not as much as you might think. You only burn 100 Calories when you run a mile on average. Given the sugar in all the food, you'd have to run for miles and miles like a Kenyan schoolkid to counteract that sugar! HINT: Why it's normally a Kenyan who wins a Marathon is because as kids in rural areas the only effective way to commute to school is to run. The school is too far to walk and there are no school buses due to Kenya being a poor country. If 25 percent of your food Calories is sugar, you'd have to run 2.5 miles EACH WAY to and from work to counteract it. Easier to just edit out the sugar - if you could. THAT is why we need to tax sugar. It's unrealistic to get everyone to commute by jogging to say the least! As we all know, school gym class only encourage the athletic kids and discourage everyone else, compounding the exercise end of the problem.

The sugar and lack of exercise are but two sources of obesity on top of genetics. There is no magic bullet. If anything it'll be a "magic shotgun shell" that'll make a dent into the problem.