_Kurtis Dunlap is a fifth-year senior at MU. He is an English major who writes about student life as an opinion columnist for The Maneater._
Everyone loves a little sugar. Whether it’s a nice candy bar in the middle of the day or a piece of chocolate cake after dinner, Americans love our sugar. We love it so much that we ignore, or just don’t care about, the amount of sugar in our soft drinks. It is time we stop blaming the big corporations for America’s obesity rate and just admit that we are the ones making ourselves obese.
A 12-ounce can of Coca-Cola has 39 grams of sugar in it. A 20-ounce bottle of Mountain Dew has 77 grams of sugar. The World Health Organization recommends that a person with an average Body Mass Index, or BMI, should consume about 25 grams per day. But many people don’t realize the total amount of sugar they are consuming because food companies are not required to put the daily value of sugar in the nutritional information of their products.
It is not corporations’ fault that you drink their product. It is your fault for not being aware and conscious of what you are putting in your body.
The Super Bowl is this weekend, and over 100 million people will watch the game. Many watch for the football, while another audience tunes in just for the commercials. Companies have paid millions of dollars for these commercials because they know millions of people will watch them. Companies like Coca-Cola and Pepsi have been mainstays in Super Bowl commercials for decades.
We are a country that has become so consumed by sugary drinks that I have seen people walking out of the gym guzzling down a Pepsi. Now tell me, where the logic is in that?
America has an obesity rate of 36.5 percent, according to the CDC. That means that more than one in three adult Americans is obese in this country. Some of these people may have bad genetics or hormonal imbalances that can influence their weight, but the majority of Americans are just naive to what they are putting in their bodies.
Mexico is one of the more obese countries in the world, and in 2013 they implemented a “sugar tax.” Since then, they are consuming fewer soft drinks and other sweet beverages. Mexico realized it had a problem and dealt with it. America needs to realize it has a problem as well.
Government regulation is a scary word to some, but without it, there would be anarchy. And right now, we need some regulation or we are going to continue drinking ourselves into more heart disease, strokes and Type 2 diabetes.
For decades, people thought cigarettes weren’t harmful because big corporations paid lobbyist groups in Washington, D.C. to hide the fact that they caused cancer. The same thing is happening now, only we know what too much sugar does to our bodies and we still do nothing.
How long do we have to go with continually higher obesity rates before we realize it is time to change? Will it be after your kids get diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes? I hope for your sake, and for all our sakes, that the next time you go to grab a Coke or a sweet tea at a restaurant that you think about what you are about to drink and then maybe, just maybe, order a water.
