[Mb-civic] Diabetes and the trash food industry - Derrick Z. Jackson - Boston Globe Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

  Diabetes and the trash food industry

By Derrick Z. Jackson  |  January 11, 2006  |  The Boston Globe

TYPE 2 DIABETES is sweeping so rapidly through America we need not waste 
time giving children bicycles. Just roll them a wheelchair. Forget the 
basketballs and baseballs. Give them Braille flash cards. The next thing 
you know, iPods, Game Boys and Xboxes will come with glucose meters, 
beeping ''Sorry to interrupt your song or movie, but it will not 
continue until you use me."

One of the saddest, emerging facts about Type 2 diabetes is how it is 
robbing children of their childhood. It is well on its way to dropping 
the overall life expectancy of Americans. This grim world of 
amputations, blindness, heart disease and kidney failure, once assumed 
to be confined to those with wrinkles, has descended into the tender world.

We have created this monster by allowing trash food marketers to prey on 
our children and by letting our children disappear into video screens. 
The number of Americans with type-2 diabetes, the kind that can be 
controlled by exercise and eating right, has exploded from 5.8 million 
in 1980 to 18.2 million today, according to the Centers for Disease 
Control and Prevention.

An American child born in 2000 has a 1 in 3 chance of contracting 
diabetes in his lifetime. An African American has a 2 in 5 chance. At 
current rates, every other Latina born in 2000 will get the disease. 
Fast food, soda and sugar snack companies are well represented in the 
Fortune 500, but the costs on the other end are staggering.

The CDC estimates that diabetes costs the United States $92 billion in 
medical costs and $40 billion in indirect costs, such as restricted or 
lost worker productivity. While diabetics now make up 6.3 percent of the 
population, the American Diabetes Association estimates that the disease 
accounts for 19 percent of health spending in the United States.

So far, none of that has captured the imagination of Americans outside 
of doctors, public health officials, and those school districts that 
have kicked out the soda machines. That is, except for pharmacies, super 
stores and the medical supplies industry which are gearing up for the 
miserable fallout.

In one of its 2005 reports, the marketing information firm IRI said that 
sufferers of diabetes, obesity, and high cholesterol are ''ideal targets 
for retailer and manufacturer programs aimed at driving sales growth. 
Many ailments such as diabetes and high cholesterol are regularly 
treated with prescription medication. For retailers and manufacturers, 
this translates to frequent shopping trips and thus, countless 
opportunities to build relationships and drive non-prescription behavior."

In the case of diabetics, the ''relationship" would be built around 
low-sugar, low-carbohydrate and low-fat foods and beverages. It also 
means that the expanding racks for diabetes management supplies, such as 
insulin, syringes and blood sugar meters also mean more customers who 
buy other items in the stores. ''This is a hotly competitive area for 
retailers," Kerrylyn Whalen Rodriguez, a diabetes specialist for 
ShopKo's pharmacies, told the trade publication Retail Merchandiser. 
''You are serving a niche that is needed for patient care but is also a 
huge sales driver. It's not just the right thing to do, it's profitable."

Ed Staffa, vice president of member services for the National 
Association of Chain Drug Stores, added in Retail Merchandiser, ''These 
are repeat patients. On an ongoing basis, the same individuals purchase 
products month in, month out. If you are able to engage them as a 
patient initially, you have their patronage for the rest of their life."

While business waits for the diseased to fall to them, the greater story 
is tragic. The nation our children are being born into is one in which 
they are more likely to be acquainted with sugar test strips than final 
exams in college.

The oversexed marketing and perfect bodies thrown at youth in the name 
of fashion will become a mockery as the young grow old before the age of 
50, with brittle nails, callouses, over-sensitive skin, balding scalps, 
punctured bodies and of course, lost limbs.

The nation has not yet had the courage to stand up against trash food 
and has forgotten how to send our kids out to play. The bodies of our 
young are becoming trash and there is no time to play.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/01/11/diabetes_and_the_trash_food_industry/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.islandlists.com/pipermail/mb-civic/attachments/20060111/420d1234/attachment.htm