We’ve been saying it for years!
And finally, Congress is listening… maybe.
Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) hosted a Congressional “roundtable” discussion with a dozen doctors and other experts from the health & wellness world. Max Lugavere, Dr. Casey Means, Dr. Marty Makary among them.
But it was Jillian Michaels, best known for her role as a tough-love trainer on “The Biggest Loser,” that received a standing ovation after delivering her passionate speech about the epidemic of chronic diseases linked to obesity impacting multiple generations of Americans.
In her speech, she brazenly called out the companies behind ultra-processed foods (UPFs) for promoting harmful products that have spawned a tidal wave of long-lasting devastating health effects, such as heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, cancer, particularly breast and colorectal, digestive issues, and cognitive decline.
In 2020, approximately 71.5 million Americans, 50 and older, had at least one chronic disease. By 2050, this number is projected to nearly double, increasing by more than 99% to reach 143 million.
Currently, more than 42% of Americans are obese.
“If this current trend is allowed to persist, the stakes will be untenable. We are in the middle of an extinction-level event,” Michaels sternly warns.
She believes the epidemic stems from the combination of Big Pharma, Big Food giants, and industrial agriculture, which use pesticides, herbicides, preservatives, and additives. Michaels argues that these entities have betrayed public trust by promoting products that have perpetually fueled the obesity epidemic.
“It seemed unthinkable to question whether a corporation would poison us for profit [and] it was this betrayal of trust that allowed them to insidiously infiltrate every part of our lives. These monster corporations have mastered the art of distorting the research, influencing the policy, buying the narrative, engineering the environment, and manipulating consumer behavior.”
UPFs undergo multiple stages of processing, adding synthetic ingredients with little nutritional benefit. According to a report in the British Medical Journal, consuming large amounts of highly processed food can increase the risk of developing heart disease by 50%. The research also suggests that eating UPFs raises the risk of obesity by 55%, sleep disorders by 41%, type 2 diabetes by 40%, and depression by 20%.
If that’s not enough, people who ate a diet of primarily UPFs were 9% more likely to die from neurodegenerative diseases like dementia, Parkinson’s, ALS, and Huntington’s disease. A different study in the BMJ found that people who ate a diet of mostly UPFs had an overall 4% higher risk of death for any reason, at all times.
But that’s not all! UPFs can also disrupt the balance of good and bad bacteria in the gut. Changes to the microbiome can promote inflammation, spur tumor growth, hinder carcinogen clearance, and impair the immune system’s ability to fight cancer cells.
Michaels stressed the importance of making lifestyle changes, including regular exercise and healthy eating, to combat the growing epidemic.
She also called for greater awareness and education about the impact of diet and physical activity on overall health, urging people to prioritize preventive measures to reduce their risk of chronic diseases.
She ardently cautioned, “While I have been fortunate enough to pull many back from the edge, over the course of my 30-year career, I have lost just as many, if not more than I have saved. I have watched them slip through my fingers, mothers that orphaned their children, husbands that widowed their wives. I have even watched parents forced to suffer the unthinkable loss of their adult children.”
“They were literally sacrificed at the altar of unchecked corporate greed.”
The entire 4-hour roundtable is available here.
While actual congressional action is unlikely anytime soon, individual action can happen NOW. Take steps today to move more and replace UPFs with whole, single ingredient foods like poultry, fish, fruits and vegetables. It’s not an easy change, but we owe it to the people who love us to take steps to improve our health, one day at a time. We want you to live better, longer.
Sources:
https://rumble.com/v5g8w5x-jillian-michaels-talks-about-americas-chronic-disease-epidemic-and-its-an-e.html
https://askjoedimatteo.com/garbage-in/
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/feb/28/ultra-processed-food-32-harmful-effects-health-review
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9881650/
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/obesity-overweight.htm
https://www.help.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/big_pharmas_business_model_report.pdf
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5296687/
https://www.bmj.com/content/384/bmj-2023-077310
https://www.bmj.com/content/385/bmj-2023-078476