Speech - Harrison Broyles

In Pixar’s superb film Wall-E, we see a robot, looking for a purpose on Earth, and a love from above. We see a warning sign of what will happen to Earth if we don’t take care of it- but how much attention do we pay to what will happen to ourselves if we don’t care for our bodies?

While overdramatized in the image behind me, America is suffering from an obesity crisis. Well, we all know that. And we all know that obesity contributes to cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and a slew of other diseases we’ve been hearing about since elementary school. Overall, these symptoms rack up to a whopping 300K deaths each year among Americans (CDC)- almost a tenth of a percent of our population.

That number doesn’t seem too dramatic at a first glance. But the problem is, it’s about to start climbing. Obesity is a more recent problem, afflicting mostly those who are baby boomers and younger. Now that they approach their “ripe old age,” this number will skyrocket. As a cause of death, obesity has already passed smoking, cancer, and accidents in the past decade alone, claiming first on the list.

We need to take action before this travesty grips our nation even tighter. Obesity is largely preventable, so, because we can prevent it, we need to. We need to save lives. We need to make obesity drop to the very bottom of that mortality list, and put it right beside spontaneous combustion. And we can begin to do that starting with our next meal.

According to a recent study, solely cutting out sugar in breakfast foods showed a remarkable difference in 43 kids qualified as obese. The researchers made no change in the kid’s lives except swap in a bagel for their typical breakfast cereal. Carbs and calories for the food were kept the same, as well as the kid’s average routine (snacking, other meals, and exercise). Within 10 days (the maximum funding for the project), all 43 children saw a drop in cholesterol, a plummeting blood sugar level, and declining blood pressure- with a little weight loss on top of that. All of these symptoms of obesity, these warning signs for death due to obesity that have stuck out like a sore thumb for so long to medical experts- began to vanish. These kids also largely reported that the switch was convenient and not distasteful to them, and many reported feeling fuller with the same amount of calories.

I’m not proposing that obesity could be smashed just by eating a bagel instead of cereal. The research above shows a correlation that had dramatic effects in ten days for a set group of kids- this won’t apply to everyone with the same magnitude. These children were most likely targeted as being overly obese, so any minor improvement in their lifestyle would have repercussions. However, it does show that for a more typical obese person, a diet change will go a long way in improving your life- according to the same researchers, within a week or two, a diet change will begin to cleanse your body of harmful sugar and other toxins, making you feel more energized, fuller, and produce the same biological results as shown in the previous study.

I have a lot of personal connection to this in my own life. My family’s gene pool is rampant with obesity and obesity related deaths. Almost everyone in my extended family has a weight problem, resulting in strokes, heart attacks, knee replacements, hip replacements, colon cancer, high cholesterol, blood pressure issues, diabetes, and hypoglycemia. My mom and her older sister were diagnosed with the latter two diseases. After their father had a stroke due to high blood pressure (caused by obesity), they went on a month long cleanse. The results were insane. My aunt lost well over 50 pounds, my mom a bit over 20. Both of them removed sugar and other overly processed foods from their diet, but kept eating the same amounts they had before and didn’t change other lifestyle habits within that time. I can guarantee you their diet wasn’t steadfast either- both cheated in a donut or soda multiple times. However, just the removal of the excess amounts of sugar and other chemicals from their diet has drastically improved their health- doctors revoked their diagnoses, and commented on how much their vitals had improved in that month.

Now back to those 300000 deaths. If we could all solely change what we eat- take out some of the unnecessary sugar and other toxins in our diets- and start to improve our health conditions in just a month, imagine the possibilities if we kept this as a lifestyle. We could easily smash the obesity epidemic. No longer would America be known for its obsession with “fries and a coke with that”, but rather its ability to start yet another revolution, leading other developed countries around the world into health revolutions of their own.

Bibliography

“Centers For Disease Control and Prevention.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Nov. 2014. Web. 30 Jun. 2015. <http://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/obesity/facts.htm>

“Medical News Today.” Medical News Today. MediLexicon International, n.d. Web. 30 Jun. 2015. <http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/264970.php>

“How An Obese Town Lost a Million Pounds.” Mick Cornett: Web. 30 Jun. 2015. <https://www.ted.com/talks/mick_cornett_how_an_obese_town_lost_a_million_pounds?language=en>

“Overweight And Obesity in the U.S. « Food Research &Amp; Action Center.” Food Research Action Center Overweight and Obesity in the US Comments. Web. 30 Jun. 2015. <http://frac.org/initiatives/hunger-and-obesity/obesity-in-the-us/>

“Watch Super Size Me Online - Amazon Instant Video.” Amazon.com: Super Size Me: Morgan Spurlock, J.R. Morley, Heather M. Winters: Amazon Digital Services , Inc. Web. 30 Jun. 2015. <http://www.amazon.com/super-size-me-morgan-spurlock/dp/b008sytu06>