Monday has arrived in its usual fashion, and for us, this is a work week. Not for me; of course not…I am retired. But Laurae returns to work at Plaza school after a two week vacation.
The house seems quite large now that the twins have gone back to Susanville. And I don’t have to worry about making any noise at this hour; there are no children to wake. And later, I can have a cookie if I want to…without having to hide it from the prying eyes of a 3-year old to make me feel guilty. Hmm? Maybe that’s not such a good thing? A little guilt might help to reduce cookie consumption.
Speaking of cookies, I just read that New York City is in the midst of a diabetes epidemic.
“An estimated 800,000 adult New Yorkers - more than one in every eight - now have diabetes, and city health officials describe the problem as a bona fide epidemic.”
Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, New York City health commissioner, had this to say…"I will go out on a limb and say 20 years from now people will look back and say: 'What were they thinking? They're in the middle of an epidemic and kids are watching 20,000 hours of commercials for junk food.'"
The percentage of diabetics in the city is nearly a third higher than in the nation.
New cases have been cropping up close to twice as fast as cases nationally. And of adults believed to have the illness, health officials’ estimate, nearly one-third do not know it.
One in three children born in the United States five years ago are expected to become diabetic in their lifetimes, according to a projection by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The forecast is even bleaker for Latinos: one in every two.
All of this is scary! And although New York is unique because of its large numbers of poor and obese in the general population; what is happening in New York is happening everywhere else in our junk food nation, though on a smaller scale. And we all pay for it.
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