Between 1977 and 2002, the percent of the American population eating three or more snacks a day -- and most of it junk food -- increased to 42 percent from 11 percent. Further, researchers found, the percent of children surveyed who said they had eaten three meals on the previous day went down, while those who had had a snack went up more than 40 percent.

The U.S. consumed over $68 billion in packaged snack foods in 2008, up from $60 billion in 2004. Among the newest and best-selling concepts are small packs of cookies and other junk foods. The spread of snacking has been abetted by over-scheduled children and the death of the family dinner.

This is just one aspect of a much larger problem that encompasses a reliance on nutritionally depleted foods, chemical additives and pharmaceutical drugs to treat the resulting malnourished bodies. The new film 'Food Matters' -- you can watch the trailer above -- looks at these problems and provides some scientifically verifiable solutions for curing disease naturally.

Sources: New York Times January 19, 2010

Dr. Mercola's Comments:

American children get 40 percent of their calories from food of poor nutritional quality.

This fact from the Agriculture Department, reported in the New York Times article above, is shocking, and exactly the reason why the film FoodMatters is so important.

The number one source of calories in the United States is high fructose corn syrup, a compound that will accelerate your progress towards degenerative diseases, and make you fat

In countries around the world, waistlines are expanding so rapidly that health experts recently coined a term for the epidemic: globesity. One in three of the world’s adults is overweight and one in 10 is obese.

The stereotypical picture of malnourishment -- a very thin, starving person -- is no longer accurate. It is possible, and quite common, for people to be both overweight and malnourished.

In fact, you may not notice symptoms until you are very severely deficient in nutrients. A lot of people may be on the borderline of malnourishment right now and not even realize it.

Then down the line an illness, such as cancer, heart disease or diabetes, occurs, and is never tied back to the lack of nutritious foods consumed over your lifetime.

The problem here is not kids eating more snacks, not by a long shot.

The problem is what’s in those snacks: ingredients that are dead and devoid of the nutrients your body needs to survive. The problem is also the chemicals added to the majority of the food supply, along with a widespread tendency to rely on pharmaceutical drugs to stay well.

FoodMatters is a Film That Could Save Your Life

As Hippocrates said, "Let thy Food be thy Medicine and thy Medicine be thy Food."

Fresh, healthy food, along with exercise and a healthy emotional outlook, really is the secret “fountain of youth” that we’re all looking for. A lifetime of healthy eating will keep you well, plain and simple.

Yet, less than six percent of graduating medical students in the United States receive any formal training in nutrition.

What’s taken food’s place?

Just one word: drugs.

Enter the massive pharmaceutical industry. It’s become a half-trillion dollar per year worldwide conglomerate -- and a $300,000-billion industry in North America alone.

Think about it. Is it really in the best financial interests of Big Business -- the pharmaceutical, medical, and agricultural industries -- to promote natural, fresh food and nutrition to keep people free from disease?

Looking at other cultures untainted by the Western world, we see people eating locally grown, unprocessed food. Their incidence of chronic and acute illness, such as heart disease and cancer, pales in comparison.

James Colquhoun and Laurentine ten Bosch have created the DVD documentary Food Matters to explore these issues, including the politics and realities of food and health care, and I highly recommend you watch it together with your family.

As Laurentine says:

"There are simple lifestyle changes that we as individuals can make to combat serious illness, and with access to solid information, people invariably make better choices for their health."

 

This is the Message I’ve Devoted My Life to Sharing

My life’s passion is to expose corporate, government and mass media hype that diverts you away from what is truly best for your health and often to a path that leads straight into an early grave.

Mercola.com is not, in other words, a tool to get me a bigger house and car, or to run for Senate.

It’s a tool to help you take control of your health, using simple lifestyle choices like healthy eating and exercise, and ultimately to help change the fatally flawed paradigm that modern medicine has become.

So in addition to resources like FoodMatters, you can use the search feature at the top of this page to get solid health information that can get you started on a fast-track to wellness right now. Some of the top pages I suggest you read first are:

• My nutrition plan
• Improving your emotional health, safely
• Exercise to improve your body and brain

With the information in these pages, you can break free of the “sickness” paradigm -- the processed food, the chemical additives, the drug solutions -- and create a healthier life for yourself and your family.

It All Starts With Your First Healthy Meal

The old saying “you are what you eat” is probably never more apparent than shortly after you eat a convenient, good-tasting junk-food meal. My guess is that most of the time you begin to feel tired, your mood sinks, your brain feels foggy, and you may even feel hungry again, not to mention all the guilt you have for putting things into your body that you know will move you toward sickness and disease.

Fortunately, the opposite also holds true: it takes just ONE good meal to start moving in a positive direction.

Just imagine the power that gives you. If you have been eating poorly recently, you can start reversing the process with your very next meal -- and start to improve your health right now.

Your body was designed to be healthy. It wants to move toward health and away from disease, and it will do its best to stay that way, provided you give it the proper tools -- the proteins, the healthy fats and the good carbs (mostly from veggies) and micronutrients -- that it needs to thrive.

If you end up feeling hungry, irritable, sleepy or sluggish after you eat, these are all signs that you are likely not giving your body the fuel that it needs to do its job properly. This fuel is different for everybody, and you can find out which exact foods your body is TRULY craving by finding out your nutritional type.

Whether it’s turning around a serious or chronic condition or just protecting your health, I want you to have the solid information you need. There’s still time to take that first -- or even fourth -- step in taking control of your health.

This article was originally posted by Dr. Mercola on January 19, 2010. Dr. Mercola is the founder of the world’s most visited natural health web site,Mercola.com. You can learn the hazardous side effects of OTC Remedies by getting a FREE copy of his latest special report The Dangers of Over the Counter Remedies by going to his Report Page. 

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