Is Fancy Marketing Keeping America Overweight?

I often shake my head at the contradictions between what we as Americans hold as dear and what we market.

Being overweight in America is frowned upon; obesity is scorned. And yet, we are inundated with images of foods that are not good for us. Nothing looks better than a great big Big Mac, or French Fries. Sometimes, the jungles from the commercials follow me around like a shadow, because the tunes are catchy,designed to become anchored in our subconscious. Images on television are masterful at getting consumers to salivate at even the thought of something greasy, fatty, and salty.

The fast food industry has wreaked havoc in our busy lives. It is far easier, after a long and busy day, to go to a fast food restaurant, sit on our derrieres as we order our food at drive through. We don’t even have to exercise by walking to the counter if we don’t want to. While we hear that fatty food and greasy foods are not good for us, we see images on television of happy families eating pieces of fried chicken as they smile lovingly at each other.

And portion control? Forget it! We have gotten used to enormous portions of the worst things possible. We prefer restaurants where we can boast of how much we get on our orders. In a prosperous culture, we behave badly; we have become gluttonous, wanting more and more, or maybe even needing more and more, in order to be satisfied.

The saddest reality about all of this is that good, healthy food is so expensive, and so the people who have the least resources use what little money they have on food that is killing them. The rates of heart disease, diabetes, and hypertension in African-American communities are way too high, and yet, with the paucity of good supermarkets in those neighborhoods, and the lack of money to buy healthy food, fast food is often the only food many urban residents, children and adults, have ready access to.

We have become conditioned to wanting fatty, greasy, salty food. I have found that when I say I’m hungry, what I’m saying is that my body is craving something salty or greasy. I give in sometimes when I feel like that, but I find it interesting that my “hunger” is rarely for an apple or a handful of walnuts.

My pull is fatty greasy salty food, but some give in to desire for big-time carbohydrates, things like bread, cake, cookies. It is so easy to sit in front of a television and eat an entire package of Oreos, or way too many Hostess Twinkies. And commercial ads make sure we don’t forget how good those goodies are!

It is a known fact that what people see, they want. When people saw Farrah Fawcett‘s haircut, they wanted it. Whenever they see something that Michelle Obama or Kate Middleton wear that they like, they want it. We want hamburgers and fries because we see them in these masterful ads. What if the ads changed, and showed, instead, more people reaching for a juicy apple or a handful of cherries, in the artful ways that advertising geniuses do in order to lure consumers to their products?

The country would be healthier; health care costs might drastically drop. We could have smaller government and less government spending, don’t you think?

This morning on the Today Show I saw a little kid who was celebrating his birthday, I think his 8th. He held a sign that said “I love French fries.” He had on ear muffs that were “French fries” over each ear.

He was cute, but he was very young…and overweight.

We have to do better.

A candid observation …

Mitt Romney, You Meant What You Said

I was always taught that what’s in one’s heart is what comes out of one’s mouth.

Actually, there’s a scripture that says the same: “For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks” is how the Gospel of Luke puts it (Luke 6:45). In my house growing up, my mother would remind us of that, and would warn us not to say things for which we would have to apologize. It was her way of saying, I guess, “Love means never having to say ‘I’m sorry.'”

In other words, when we say things, it’s what we feel. It might be in the heat of a moment, but it is what we really feel.

So, I don’t buy this stuff GOP candidate Mitt Romney is saying, as he explains his now famous statement, “I am not concerned about the very poor,” that he “misspoke.” Hardly, Mitt. You said what was and what is in your heart.

As these GOP candidates have campaigned, all of them have said things which reveal what they feel about America’s underclass. While I cringe at how they go after each other, it bothers me to my heart that these guys seem so disconnected from people in this country who need a government that cares about them.

It is probably naive for me to want candidates to care, but I do. I am not for “big government” as it is being described, but I do want a government that has the good sense to take care of its own. I am reminded of a speech Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King gave a year before his death as he spoke out against the Viet Nam War: he said that he found it hard to talk to young people about democracy because he couldn’t explain why a country – our country – would spend millions of dollars and sacrifice hundreds of thousands of human lives un a war supposedly to get their people freedom and civil rights when our own government does not make sure its own citizens have the same.

We are coming out of The Great Recession, an event which has devastated literally hundreds of thousands of Americans. The once poor are now the “very poor,” and many of the former “middle class” are now poor. These are people who worked hard and who were whammied by the sinking of our economy which presumably happened because of the activities of greedy wealthy people. Though the unemployment rate is slowly dropping, and more and more people are finding work, many, too many, of our nation’s citizens are suffering.

And Mitt Romney, it seems, could care less.

He said that he wasn’t worried about the very poor because they have a safety net, meaning government programs – which help them, but an indicator of how far removed he is from the madding crowd, so to speak, is that much of that safety net is being and has been chipped away, and if he has his way, even more of it will be eliminated. He cannot relate to the fact that way too many Americans need food stamps in order to eat, to feed their children. He has not seen the eyes of the poor and very poor, trying desperately to get out of the wells of despair in which they sit, but he doesn’t want to. He is not concerned about them.

Newt Gingrich has seized upon Romney’s statement and is using it, saying we should be concerned about the poor. Nice try, Newt, but his earlier statements, including the one that’s been a part of his campaign rhetoric, that President Obama is the “food stamp president” shows that he isn’t too concerned about the poor, either, but is more concerned about a government which has issued a record number of food stamps to keep people going during this economic tsunami.

And even President Obama hasn’t shown much verbal concern for the poor; he has been soundly criticized for not mentioning the poor more often and for not coming up with more policies that directly impact and help the poor of this nation, specifically black and brown people.

Needless to say, the U.S. Congress has not shown by its behavior that it is concerned all that much by the poor. The primary objective of House Republicans is to make sure that Barack Obama is a one term president, and the Senate has been rather mealy-mouthed in addressing the ills of this nation as concerns our suffering citizens.

So, what are the poor? If the poor or the very poor are people with whom the leaders of this country are not concerned, what kind of nation are we, really? Mitt Romney has said that people are “jealous” of people who have money. How callous is that? He said that over $300,000 he received for a speaking engagement was not a lot of money. Again, it doesn’t get much more callous or insensitive than that.

Mitt Romney, you didn’t “misspeak.” You spoke what was in your heart.

A candid observation …

Don Cornelius and the Silent Killer

The only thing that makes the death of Don Cornelius more troubling than it is on its own is that he reportedly killed himself.

This brilliant, innovative visionary man, who forever changed lives of African American entertainers and the music world with an American experiment called “Soul Train,” apparently shot himself in the head at the age of 75.

The report made me weep.

Why? Because of all the illnesses we talk about in our society, mental illness is still taboo. Mental illness is rampant, just as are other diseases like heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer’s Disease, and yet, we don’t want to talk about it. To admit that we do not feel good emotionally, that we are depressed and just cannot seem to “get it together” makes us feel like we are weak.

And so, to escape being called weak, people drown in depression or other mental illnesses on a daily basis. People are sick and are not getting treated, nor have many of them ever been treated.

I am quite sure that much of the dysfunction that is so much reported about the African-American community is because a lot of African-American children suffer from some sort of mental illness. The illnesses are written off by parents and teachers alike; sick children are labeled “bad,” are suspended or expelled, because nobody likes their behavior – behavior that comes as the result of being mentally ill.

Children of more affluent families at least have parents who recognize when something seems to be wrong with their children emotionally and some, not all, get help. But even in those families, it seems that there is a stigma to needing help to deal with one’s emotions or mental health.

But back to Don Cornelius: here was an African-American man who apparently walked with horrendous mental anguish and didn’t know how to deal with it. He carried it inside him, as so many people who are mentally ill do, until it drove him to the depth of desperation and despair that resulted in his committing suicide.

I cannot imagine how badly he hurt. What people don’t seem to realize, or don’t realize, is that mental illness really does hurt. It’s not like a headache or a sore elbow, or even a bacterial infection, where some pretty readily accessible medications can help the pain go away. The pain of mental illness is different; it is a cloud that forever hangs over one’s head. Some days are less cloudy than others, but that stupid cloud is always there.

When little children, especially poor children, are labeled “bad” in addition to already feeling emotionally bad, the illness of self hatred is added to the broth already simmering within. When one hates oneself, one hates others as well, and that self-hatred, fueled by an illness that was never treated, leads, I am convinced, to much of the criminal behavior we see today.

Mental illness is no less an important issue than is hypertension, breast cancer, diabetes or heart disease. It is no less a silent killer than is hypertension…and it is way past time that we take our heads out of the sands of shame and “man up” to the fact that way too many people are suffering silently, and are being driven to despair.

It is no more a sign of weakness to be mentally ill than it is to have any physical disease or ailment. In both cases, something physiologically and or biochemically is out of alignment, causing discomfort and pain.

As we work hard to heal physical illness, so should we be working as hard, or maybe even harder, to at least effectively treat mental illness, and move the stigma out of the picture.

Too many great people are living with mental illness, and too many have died way too soon from it…

Like Don Cornelius.

A candid observation …

Girl Talk: Poor Women Have Breasts, Too

I am stunned, no, angry, at the decision of the Susan G.Komen organization not to award grants to Planned Parenthood anymore. Their reason is because they oppose abortion, and, despite Planned Parenthood’s assertion that no Komen funds are used for abortions, the Komen folks aren’t buying it.

The fallout is that poor women whose only way to get mammograms was through Planned Parenthood are out of luck.

Interestingly, this happened at the same time that GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney said he’s “not concerned about the very poor because they have a safety net.” He mentioned the usual – food stamps, Medicaid…

He says they have a safety net even as his party is working to dismantle the same.

But…back to the decision by the Susan G. Komen organization…do they not know that poor women …have breasts, too, and that they, too, need to get screened for breast cancer?

Reports say that money from the Susan G. Komen Foundation provided enough money via their grants to Planned Parenthood over the past five years to pay for 170,000 clinical breast exams, which were particularly helpful for women in rural or in underserved areas.

The Komen grants were given specifically to pay for these breast exams. I know enough about grants that grant recipients are mandated to use the money for the purpose stated in the grant application.

Apparently, though, the Komen Foundation powers-that-be do not like the fact that Planned Parenthood clinics will do abortions. That makes them mad, so, what the heck? Who cares about poor women with breasts who need to be tested for breast cancer so they can perhaps get treated, too?

It is infuriating.

Many who in the past have walked in a Komen event, or who have supported Komen in its efforts, including myself, are going to stop. I suppose Komen’s donations could suffer, but they also could increase, because the topic of abortion and contraception are such hot-button issues for Americans.

But my concern is for the innocent women who depended on the work of Planned Parenthood to get these very important clinical breast exams. Where will they go? How will they get the care they need?

It feels more and more like we live in a “let them eat cake” society, with the rich not caring about the number of people who struggle to survive. It feels more and more not only like they are blamed for being poor, but are scorned because they depend on help in order to make it.

Something is wrong with this picture.

The Bible says that the love of money is the root of evil. I am supposing that some very wealthy political type said to the Komen folks that if they didn’t stop funding Planned Parenthood that a big chunk of money that they normally get might not be…available anymore.

So, as is usually the case, the poor get the boot in order to make a political point.

Poor women have breasts, too. Poor women count.

I guess the Komen folks forgot those facts…or worse, they don’t care about those facts.

A candid observation …

Two Bibles, Two Gods, Two Constitutions?

It occurred to me that in this country, we probably live by a set of two of everything we hold dear.

I, as an African American, see the world, God, the Bible and the United States Constitution and the Declaration of Independence differently, it seems, than many of my white brothers and sisters.

It seems that we – black and white Americans – both live in make-believe worlds. In my world, I make-believe that the Constitution is a document that pushes egalitarianism, equality, justice for all. In my make-believe world, God is a God of justice, who is, as the Book of Galatians states, “no respecter of persons.” My God is one who would not and who has never sanctioned violence, discrimination, lynching, denial of rights and economic disparity. My God is the hero of the oppressed, the God who thundered “Let my people go!” The Bible I read supports the idea of God that I have as a loving God who loves all His/Her children equally.

In the make-believe world of my white brothers and sisters, racism is gone, a thing of the past. It seems that for many, not all, but for many of my white brothers and sisters, God was, at least, a God of division, a God who ordained slavery and allows injustice. For them, God does not insist on social justice ; or them, “the least of these” is a group narrowly defined, most often not citizens of America. For my friends, the United States Constitution does not guarantee that all people should have the same rights as others; all people are NOT created equal, they will say, and have always said. (Even our beloved President Abraham Lincoln, though he opposed slavery for some very pragmatic reasons, said that he in no way thought that white and black men were equal or deserving of equal rights.) The Bible that my white friends read and interpret from seems to condone the superiority of one race over another, and includes passages, divine words, if you will, as justification not only for racism, but for sexism and homophobia…and perhaps militarism as well.

Well,it’s no wonder the country is in such a mess! We do not intersect, we blacks and whites, in the very areas where we should,tied together by one God, one Bible and one Constitution. The problem is that God, in Her wisdom, created us with minds that interpret what seem to be pretty clear-cut and dry messages in all kinds of different ways. The Founding Fathers never intended any of us to include black people or women, for that matter, in their lofty statement that “all men are created equal.” The late Strom Thurmond said that yes, the Bible said that we should love our neighbor, but that, by golly, we as individuals have the right to choose who our neighbors are.

I wonder if God is wringing His hands? I rather doubt that the Founding Fathers are sorry for what they wrote; they wrote what they meant, and they thought everyone – including black people and other people of color and women – would be bright enough to understand. But God…I wonder about God, and about what God thinks. Is God pleased not only with this country, which seems to have a dual belief system for whites and blacks, but for other countries which practice oppression, discrimination and cruelty on the basis of another’s race or gender?

I sometimes wonder if God is sighing and thinking that we people still have problems “returning to God,” as did the ancient Israelites. When God’s people back then continued to live in ways that were in contradiction to God’s will, God got angry.

I wonder if God is angry now.

A candid observation…