One Large Order of Fries, Please!

I was standing in line at the hot food counter in the Medical Center's cafeteria waiting to order a sandwich. The guy ahead of me was looking over the food options and complaining that, yet again, they had switched the menu. He began to talk out loud to himself. "Veggie burgers... where are those veggie burgers? Do they have a new name or something? Is it $2.95 or $1.75? Can't they make up their minds?" After all his grumbles, he finally turned to me and said, "You know Ellen White would turn over in her grave if she knew all this stuff we were eating. Burgers and chili fries and all that..." I laughed and nodded politely. Finally he was asked what he would like to order.

"Yeah, uh, I'll take two veggie burgers and fries... Actually, make it a large order of fries."

He turned to me again, as if to make sure I understood his point. "Yeah, Ms. White would not be happy with us."

He then broke out in laughter over the irony of the situation. But it really got me thinking about our health on a larger scale. I am constantly studying the messed up health care system that we have created, as well as the ever growing health concerns that our country faces. When it comes down to it, we are spending more and more on health care: 18% of our GDP - and if you don't know what that looks like in numbers, that's a couple TRILLION dollars. But do you want to know what's sad? We aren't getting any healthier.

We are paying for the latest and greatest in this country because that is what we always strive for. But at what cost? Chronic disease is the number one killer in this country: heart disease, to be more specific. Is increased spending going to solve our problem? How about Obamacare? I may just be an MBA student, but I can already tell you that those two "answers" are not what this country needs.

The focus needs to shift to prevention and education. We are rewarding physicians by going into specialized fields, but what about our primary care doctors? The changes in how people receive health care will greatly affect these physicians. They will have less time to see their patients because a greater number of people will be in their waiting rooms. But these physicians won't see more income as a result. Furthermore, med students today are more likely going to specialize because their checks are going to be significantly larger. No wonder they disregard a primary care position all together.

The problem doesn't end there either. Obesity is growing at an alarming rate. Something like 40% of Americans are considered to be obese. What's worse, the children I have will statistically have a shorter life expectancy than me, and 1 in 3 kids will develop type II Diabetes in their life. These are outrageous and horrible stats. Of course we can say that it's the individuals choice to eat healthier and maintain an exercise plan, but it isn't that easy. It's ironic that the place I live in now is a Blue Zone and is in the unhealthiest county in California. San Bernardino's population is poor and crime-ridden. The chance of one finding a grocery store is small. Liquor stores and fast food businesses run the city. Is a poor family able to shop for fruits and vegetables every week? Probably not. Instead they run through the McDonalds drive thru to grab burgers and fries.

Why does the healthy food have to be so much more expensive? I would not consider myself poor, but when I go grocery shopping it hurts my wallet to buy vegetables and fruits over frozen burritos and crackers. So not only is our healthcare system completely backwards, so is our agriculture and food industry. The cheap food is cheap for a reason - they are made with unnatural, unhealthy, inexpensive ingredients (most of that being corn - seriously, corn is in everything). But what can our nation do to solve this problem? Not a lot actually. Come to find out the USDA (the government agency that is supposed to regulate our food) is being run by former leaders of PepsiCo, Frito Lay, and Kraft - essentially the companies that manufacture this food. There is barely any support for farmers and what support is offered is highly regulated.

Let's not even get into the fact that these foods are now considered to be addictive. Or the fact that we are serving it to kids in school. We know that the food is unhealthy, we know that it is affecting our quality of life, but why aren't we doing anything about it? We are just like the man I met in line today. Fully knowing that what we are ordering is bad for us - and ordering a great big helping of it. These giant corporations are a huge part of our problem and still we keep giving them our service. Isn't it about time America steps up and doesn't just patch a problem with a temporary solution, but instead shifts the focus to the real problem at hand? Like I said before, we are spending more and more to keep us healthier and to live longer, but we are dying much sooner than we expected. It isn't just the individual's choice to maintain a healthy lifestyle - sometimes they don't have that option. Who is going to change things?