A quickie: responding to Katie Couric's thoughts on sugar consumption and rising levels of diabetes.

Today, Katie Couric went on the Daily Show and talked up her new documentary, Fed Up.  It pointed out the chilling fact that because of the amount of sugar in the American diet and the resultant levels of diabetes and obesity, we are now looking at the first generation of kids who will have shorter lifespans than their parents.  

Now.  This is, of course, terrible.  We've known for decades that they typical American diet is unhealthy.  We've had much suspicion (which is, I believe, addressed and confirmed in her film) that information regarding recommended daily dosages of sugar are manipulated, and that the companies who produce our food are far too involved in the "scientific" communities that attempt to study them.  (I say "scientific" because any community that is, essentially, owned by a company that produces the subject of their testing is going to have a conflict of interest.  Its research is not, then, purely scientific--hence, "scientific".)

Anyway.  Her suggestion was that it costs less to cook some chicken and vegetables than to buy fast food.  She also recommended that people take a calculator to the grocery store so that they can figure out how much sugar is really going to be consumed by their families.  

So.

What she doesn't discuss? The growing number of low income families who are, for a variety of reasons, disproportionately at risk for these illnesses. How working parents might not have the time or the skill to cook healthy meals for their kids. Food deserts. Stress and cortisol levels. The effects of genetically modified foods. 

The answer to increasing levels of diabetes and obesity is not as simple as "cook chicken and vegetables at home instead of eating fast food."  I wish it was.  

Ignoring the complexity here carries some frightening consequences. There is the obvious: the trend of demonizing the poor and shaming the overweight--both of which do nothing to help the issue, but sure makes people feel better about themselves.  

More importantly, these simple answers prevent us from reassessing and reforming the systems that perpetuate the problem in the first place.