Is American Health terrible, despite all of the things that are available to us? The sad truth is, yes. At the very least American health is in part terrible. Almost 80 percent of Americans have usable time in their day that they could be exercising, and only about 30 percent of us choose to. Even a simple 30-60 minute workout a day would result in a huge drop of average health problems. Heart disease is approximately 84 percent preventable, yet so many Americans suffer from it each year. Cardiovascular problems run rampant while the fast food and soda industries rake in billions. McDonald’s is just a figurehead that has been slandered because of the fast food industry. In truth every single fast food restaurant in America is unhealthy.
The average American eats fast food three to four times a week, with a large portion of the country eating fast food more than once in a single day. Soda stares at you in every store, around every corner, and in any set of advertisements. A study was done in 2008 with twenty teenagers ages 16-19. Ten of them were not allowed to drink any soda at all, and ten of them were required to drink a regulated amount of soda each day. After a month of the diets, the twenty teenagers were all timed in a run of one mile. The ten teenagers who abstained from soda were all able to finish under ten minutes, despite the lack of exercise regulation in the study. The average time for the other ten teens was sixteen minutes, with one runner unable to finish due to a cramp so severe he vomited extensively. This simple, relatively short study should be all it takes to cut back on soda, but is it? No, Americans see tens of thousands of studies on fast food, health, drugs, smoking, and soda every year and turn an ignorant ear on all of them. How far will we let our health slip before we start paying attention?
