Diabetes and Its Awful Toll Quietly Emerge as a Crisis – New York Times
The NYT has a front-pager on diabetes, from the personal to the epidemiological: Diabetes and Its Awful Toll Quietly Emerge as a Crisis. The quote:
“I will go out on a limb,” said Dr. Frieden, the health commissioner, “and say, 20 years from now people will look back and say: ‘What were they thinking? They’re in the middle of an epidemic and kids are watching 20,000 hours of commercials for junk food.’ “
Couldn’t agree more, Dr. Frieden. It always amazes me how physicians will shake their heads in frustration with patients who are suffering from obesity or diabetes, but if you were to ask them if there should be some sort of regulation or help, they turn all libertarian, as if it’s only an individual problem, and laws or better city planning couldn’t help.
regulation? help? not being libertarian? i don’t think so. as i am reading the Times series, the single most common problem is. . . FREAKIN’ POVERTY. including LACK OF HEALTH CARE. ya think? COULD we do just a LITTLE BIT BETTER? mc donald’s $1 value menu? where is the value in that? i loved the part about what was available for food on the East side, upper & lower.
also—diabetes has been correlated clinically w/depression. many people in this series demonstrated that, at least anecdotally.
i think that fast-food adverts on TV will, and should, have the same prevalence as smoking commercials do. people had BETTER look back and say “what were we thinking?”