You may have heard the same news report that I heard.

Average life expectancy is falling in many parts of the United States and for many demographic groups, most notably women, according to a study that was published Wednesday (June 15, 2011) in the journal Population Health Metrics, and conducted by the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington in Seattle.

In the study, Dr. Ali Mokdad, an IHME official who is researching causal factors affecting life expectancy, listed four reasons for the trends found in the report:

  1.  Poverty and lack of education
  2. Access to health care
  3. Quality of medical care
  4. Preventable risk factors like:  obesity, untreated high blood pressure and smoking.

The enormous increase in obesity, which has doubled in the past 30 years, from 17 percent to 34 percent of the population (editor’s note:  the real number is hovering around 80%) may be the most alarming. He points out that obesity is linked to: low incomes, education levels, lack of access to healthy food choices, particularly fresh fruit and vegetables and the dominance of fast food (editor’s note:  and packaged, processed and convenience food).

What could you take away from this report?

  1. There is a conspiracy between Big Pharma and Big Health Care to keep their profits high – at our expense – and Doctors are in on it?
  2. The Teacher’s Unions have a socialist agenda to dumb down the population on matters of nutrition?
  3. The US Congress is conspiring to “kill off” segments of the population to reduce the budget?
  4. Big Food rents Super Market shelf space, builds fast food restaurants and convenience stores to sell packaged food to make a profit?

Who will get the blame – this time?

Here’s another perspective.

  1. Commercialized farms and ranches grow and sell food commodities that are measured by quantity, price and appearance
  2. Their largest customers are not consumers, they are food manufacturers

Food manufacturers make their products to:

  1. Appeal to customers with advertising, packaging and price
  2. Create repeat business with taste and convenience
  3. Stay on the shelf as long as possible to protect their investment in inventory

There is a marketing term, “Give the Gorilla a Banana”, that means sell what people want to buy.   Commercial farms and ranches are growing and food manufacturers are making what you are buying; therefore,  … .

 Frankly, I believe the statistics – I choose not to be one, and you can too. 

We speak with our checkbook.  We buy the best real food we can find, prepare and eat it; then, we fill in the gaps with supplements.  We’re in our mid 60’s, close to our healthy weight, without prescriptions and active.

Our program is easy and it is working for us.  Why not try it?  It sure beats being another statistic.

P.S.  Don’t despair if you are on the way to becoming a statistic.  You might be able to change that, too with NUPRO health systems and the body manual.