Since that second epiphany, I have grown to understand that those who do without are not the only ones faced with great danger. Our nation, which abounds in plenty, is also heading into a “perfect storm,” not because of lack but ironically because of plenty.
Sadly, most Americans are woefully unaware of monstrous icebergs lurking in their paths, dangers that I foresee will bring tragedy to many families. I am deeply concerned for the welfare of my nation. Our affluence has brought with it attendant dangers equally as destructive and equally as lethal as those which accompany hunger and poverty.
Our concern for the poor should not waiver, but it is becoming apparent that we need to be concerned for the wealthy as well. The gap between the rich and poor grows wider with each passing year. This social and economic gap between the world’s richest 1 billion people and the world’s poorest 1 billion people has no historical precedent in recorded human history.
At the bottom end of the spectrum, the disenfranchised members of our human family struggle for daily survival. The lack of daily sustenance at the most basic level, food and clean water, leaves them precariously vulnerable to opportunistic diseases. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization has reported that there are 862 million members of our human family who are presently undernourished and chronically hungry. The children are the innocent victims who are most acutely impacted by this tragedy. Malnutrition stunts their growth, curtails their mental capacity, and compromises their immune systems. As a direct consequence, they are more severely plagued and overcome by such infectious diseases as malaria, tuberculosis, dysentery, measles, respiratory infections, and AIDS, which typically torment the poor disproportionately to the rest of society.
The lack of clean water, which we take for granted in the western world, is a major global health problem. Waterborne diseases such as cholera, dysentery, and a host of parasites claim more than 3 million precious lives each passing year. For this reason, the average life expectancy in the poorest nations is only around 40 years.
In the west, modern advancements in medicine and farming techniques have resulted in an average life expectancy that now incredibly ranges around 80 years of age. The use of irrigation pumps and the mechanization of farming tools, as well as the use of fertilizers and pesticides due to the availability of cheap oil in the twentieth century, have provided unprecedented agricultural yields in the majority of the western world. The skyrocketing cost of fossil fuel will most certainly impact this present bounty in the future, but for now our land is certainly a veritable horn of plenty.
However, for this segment of our human family that has reaped the benefits of this technology, new evidence indicates that an ominous rise in disease will shortly begin to reverse the trend toward increased longevity. There is a hidden danger that may threaten, and even reverse, the magnificent advancements made through our modern technology.
In addition to the already well-documented health problems resulting from the ingestion of carcinogens, such as those found in tobacco products, air pollution, and foods laced with pesticides, there is an iceberg of unprecedented proportions that is looming ever larger in the near horizon. The iceberg is obesity.
An alarming rise in diseases related to lifestyle excesses is beginning to take an increasing toll on the health and vitality of our nation. The steady rise in the incidence of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, myocardial infarctions, strokes, and perhaps even Alzheimer’s, which we are experiencing in the western nations, can be directly or indirectly related to obesity, which in turn is generally caused by incorrect diets, over-consumption, and exercise deprivation.
Most Americans are blindly navigating in due course to crash and sink, completely unaware of the lethal consequences they will face in the future because of their poor choices today. These choices are not being made out of selfishness, but out of ignorance. For this reason I have chosen to write this book in order to sound the alarm, in the hopes that some will open their eyes and change their course before it is too late.
The social and economic impact of this escalating trend in obesity is not being greatly appreciated by most in our western culture. It will probably continue to be ignored by most of us until the lethal consequences strikes one in our family. In a single heartbeat our lives can change forever, but it need not be gloom and doom. It can change for good, or it can change for bad.
Our choices have consequences. If we learn to make the right choices, we can hedge our bets against many of the billowing storms of life. We can avoid many of those hidden obstacles that lead to suffering and pain, if we recognize the dangers early enough to make the right corrections to our path.
The collective fate of our nation rests on the individual choices that we will make in the near future. The right choices will lead to healthy and productive lives, which naturally results in a prosperous nation. The wrong choices will bring upon us illness, disability, and even death before our time. Sadly, it shall be the ruin of many families. Moreover, it shall certainly result in the financial ruin of our entire nation, if we do not recognize the problem at hand and properly address it before it is too late. The choice is ours to make.
For the past several decades America has been making a series of bad choices in several separate and yet related areas that are driving us toward that iceberg. This perfect storm has the potential of financially sinking our nation, and ruining the lives of many individuals and families. It is this realization that brought me to my
third epiphany.
