MondayMourning: Exporting Fat

When cigarette sells began to decline several years ago because people didn’t want to die of lung cancer, the tobacco industry didn’t rethink their product—they just rethought their strategy and began to work on increasing brand awareness in less educated countries. Without their redistribution of toxin we might never have had the smoking Indonesian baby.

Today there’s a new global export: fat. Obesity is on the rise and Americans aren’t taking it sitting down—well some are—but a growing number are trying to get bit by experimenting with healthier food options. That’s good for health insurance providers because it results in less illness, but not so good for those who rely on our glutinous bellies.

Taking a cue from the tobacco industry, we’ve taken our fat global. Sending cheap, addictive, sugary food to third world countries is great for business…but poor for health. Think diabetes is bad in America? Look to China, where 90,000,000 people suffer from it—four times more than America.

​Obesity is on the rise in America. But it’s not an American problem. It’s a world problem.