The American Diet

The average American eats around 2700 calories a day and 2 out of 3 adults are obese (Avena). About 300,000 deaths occur every year due to illnesses related to our diet such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer. The American diet includes an overabundance of food filled with artificial sweeteners and fried foods that is making Americans more overweight than ever. Americans spend on average over $20 billion dollars in an effort to improve their health and lose weight yet it still remains that the majority of the country is still overweight (ABC). Even those who are not overweight still are vulnerable to the health risks of the average American diet. The term “skinny-fat” describes Americans who, though are a healthy weight for their body, have a high body fat percentage and can still suffer from the same health risks as those who are overweight. The problem with the American diet has many factors, and its detrimental effect on the health and lives of many Americans, can be narrowed down to the gmos and hormones infesting the nation’s produce, the oversupply of processed foods, and the government’s unwillingness to intervene.
Over 60 percent of the food in most supermarket foods contain Genetically Modified Organisms (Caldwell). In fact 90 percent of the corn produced in the United States are grown with GMOs, along with 93 percent of all soy and 90 percent of canola plants (Kelly). GMOs are “plants or animals that have been genetically engineered with DNA from bacteria, viruses or other plants and animals.” There is much discussion of the dangers of GMOs and whether or not they actually pose a threat to the health of humans but there have been studies that suggest that GMOs can be very destructive. According to the FDA, GMOs can cause “infertility, immune problems, accelerated aging, faulty insulin regulation, and changes to the gastrointestinal system” (GRACE). The