My life is not bombarded with advertisements. I manage to ignore banner ads on the internet and those pesky ones on the side that tell you one of your old classmates is looking for you. Sometimes, at night, I enjoy a little entertainment by watching movies or shows on the internet. Usually shows are interrupted, which is fine, because it gives me a chance to walk away for a minute. I didn’t walk away last night as the commercial started. It was Elmo from “Sesame Street” and the first lady, Michelle Obama. She told him that she was going to take a walk around Sesame Street and wanted to know if he wanted to go with her. Of course Elmo goes into a seizure he’s so happy at the suggestion, the web site flashes and it’s over. It reminded me of another commercial, similar, from the American Ad Council, called “Be a player”, with Dreamworks characters. Go outside and play at least an hour a day, was its claim. Hmmm. Cartoon characters telling me to go play. But set a timer and come right back in to catch your show right? So I decided to go to the Sesame Street website and find out what more they wanted me to know. There was nothing that just reached out and said LOOK RIGHT HERE! I had to dig deep into the parent’s page, because why does a kid care about his health. There I found a series of videos under the “Healthy Eating Tips” heading. I watched part of one called “A cookie is a sometimes food” starring none other than the beloved Cookie Monster. In it, he sees a wall full of fruit. He passes it until he sees a cookie buried in the mix. He’s delighted, then Hoots the owl starts singing to him about how he should have an apple or some grapes, because they’re an anytime food. To learn more it gave this link: http://www.smallstep.gov/ I checked it out to, it’s informative, if you are completely clueless about what you eat.
It’s a sad state of affairs. The book I just read gave a statistic that as of 2000, 1 in 3 children will develop diabetes. Diabetes…..diabetes….yeah, I think I’ve heard of that. But that’s just fat people right? Aren’t they the ones who develop diabetes? No. Skinny people can develop it to.
Diabetes is a group of diseases marked by high levels of glucose, also called blood sugar, resulting in defects of insulin production, insulin action, or both. 23.6 million people, or 8%, have diabetes. The total annual economic cost of diabetes in 2007 was $174 billion. That’s right, that’s billion with a “B”.
I’m no doctor, I don’t even know much about diabetes itself, but i do know that it is an epidemic, more dangerous than we think and it’s going to be really, really expensive for the United States. So I ask you to do what you can. A good first step is to examine what you eat. If it has more than five ingredients in it, it probably isn’t a food, but a food product, so nix it from your diet. But Amanda, that’s like EVERYTHING in my pantry! Yeah I know, it stinks, but in the long run, you’ll be doing yourself a huge favor. Also, don’t forget to exercise. Because, those ads that I found disgusting are right. Make your kids (and yourself) get up off the couch and go play.
Here are a few more links that you will just have to cut and paste into your browser:
American Diabetes Association, tips for prevention:
http://www.diabetes.org/food-nutrition-lifestyle/lifestyle-prevention/live-your-life.jsp
National Diabetes Fact Sheet
This link is funny, because it’s a book for people who don’t like to do exercise. When people make remarks about my weight, I tell them I mow my lawn, and that’s just what I did today. You want to get the sweat pouring, mow your lawn.
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