America, A Sugar Centered Culture
By: Ben Schaefer
Tags: Health Foods, Consumerism

By Benjamin Schaefer on April 18, 2021

What is more American than the Big mac from McDonalds and the Big Gulp from 7/11?

Not much, some would agree like my friend Alex Tutto from Switzerland. The other day we got into a boyish game of playful geographical insults where he re centered my curiosity to America’s gross stereotype of the over consumer. However, shortly after it got me thinking. Alex’s view of the American over consumer is not necessarily wrong; quite the contrary actually he’s right and like a crab in a pot of boiling water sometimes it’s hard to realize an issue until it’s too late.

There are 195 different countries all over the world with all different kinds of variations of cultures, governments, and lifestyles. Where we grow up and the types of cultures we are exposed to as we grow help to shape our values and lives. A simple example of this is music and how it varies, geographically influenced by beliefs, values, and hardships. Just as music is affected by the place and culture it comes from so is food. Research done in 2019 on global portion sizes by Fred Lamoath and Sheraz Malik shows a noticeable difference in proportion size based on geographical location. However, both portion size and type of food both play roles in affecting a person’s physical health.

“The U.S. adult obesity rate stands at 42.4 percent, The national adult obesity rate has increased by 26 percent since 2008.” according to Trust for America’s Health.org

With Americas such high obesity rates it places the country well within the top 20 most obese nations. This is a serious issue and not something to be taken lightly. Obesity leads to a slew of health issues including but not limited to stroke, heart disease, high blood pressure, lack of mobility, joint pain, and spinal compression. Heart disease is the number one cause of death worldwide and to be put into perspective against the recent covid-19 pandemic, 2,353 people die in the US daily due to heart disease while covid-19 death total for the US being 566k with some math done that gives us a daily average of 1455 deaths from Covid in the US per day since the the first case of covid -19 on March 25, 2020. For how serious we have taken covid-19 why are we not doing the same for obesity?

But healthy people can get and die heart disease some argue and while yes this is true the percentage of people that are healthy normal weight individuals that die of heart disease is far less than those that are obese. As ObesityAction.org highlights that,

“A higher BMI is associated with increased risk of heart failure–for every one unit of increase in BMI, the risk of heart failure increases by 5 and 7 percent in men and women respectively”

To summarize different geographical locations and cultures affect our portion size and what we eat. Obesity in any case or instance can lead to serious health issues the most common being heart disease is the leading cause of death worldwide. Americans suffer from high levels of obesity and therefore suffer many preventable deaths from heart disease. Why?

The secret to solving obesity is in the culture of America. Let’s return to the American classic the Big Mac and 7/11 Big Gulp and break them down. The average male adult should eat around 2500 calories a day. However it is where we get these calories from that is important. 38 grams of sugar is the adult male maximum recommended amount of sugar per day. If one were to eat one Big Mac one would consume nine grams of sugar and 563 calories. A Big Gulp on top of that would add about 72 grams of sugar and 263 calories. Meaning in one meal, just focused on calories and sugars, one would consume 826 calories and a whopping 81 grams of sugar just over double the recommended daily amount in one meal.

When you eat a lot of added sugar, the liver gets overloaded with fructose and unable to break it down it is turned into fat. That means someone who is trying to lose weight simply by eating less calories would actually gain weight if those calories were dense in sugar.

America’s struggle with obesity comes from the inability to control sugar consumption. In a country that prides itself on freedom the freedom of the food market has allowed companies like McDonalds and 7/11 to pump their foods full of sugars and make their portion sizes much too large for even the average person to consume in a healthy way.

In doing research for this article I decided to do some of my own field work. I work at a Golden Spoon frozen yogurt shop where we have 4 sizes of yogurt Mini, Regular, Large, and Quart. After looking into sugar density and American caloric intake I started to believe that our portion sizes were much too great and marketed so that customers would buy more and not buy healthy.

A Golden Spoon regular size

The Mini yogurt is 4 ounces and roughly 15 grams of sugar which means if a healthy adult male bought one mini the sugar content would be that of a healthy portioned dessert. The regular to no surprise was double the size and double the sugar, ten ounces and 30 grams of sugar. This would mean one regular would have enough sugar to suffice the maximum adult male daily recommended sugar intake. In order to see if people were eating healthy or simply picking off a suggested name I decided to mark the average yogurts each person bought and the size of the yogurt. My research supported my claim of what I feared to be true. Whether it was sleazy marketing, lack of awareness, or cultural development reinforcements on average the regular was picked just under 50% more than the mini. Shockingly when it came to multiple yogurts per person the regular was picked 95% more likely.

Poll taken at Golden Spoon Frozen Yogurt by cowers and I durning the night shift.

To summarize in total, where we live can affect what we eat and how much we eat. Americans struggle at every level of this from fast food to” healthier” dessert places like Golden Spoon. The sugar we consume daily can have a massive effect on our weight and therefore our physical health. Educating people on eating healthier instead of trying to make some extra cash can only benefit everyone in the future. As a healthier society is a more productive society.

-Benjamin Schaefer

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benschaefer2007@yahoo.com