Blog Action Day 2011: Food
Blog Action Day 2011 falls on World Food Day, so naturally this year’s topic is food!
Many people today are sharing their own family traditions concerning food. Thanksgiving customs and homemade recipes. That’s great. Really.
But to me, Blog Action Day seems more like a day to take action, rather than swap stories.
Still more people are talking about famine, a phenomenon that seems to be taking place in more and more countries.
I’m talking about that today, but also about the United States’ growing trend of obesity.
The CDC has a delightful graph that shows the growing trend of obesity in the United States by state since 1985.
15 years. 15 years and the average BMI% of Americans doubled. The same website states that “About one-third of U.S. adults (33.8%) are obese.” and “Approximately 17% (or 12.5 million) of children and adolescents aged 2—19 years are obese.”
Three years ago, I shared some statistics that I discovered while writing my Blog Action Day 2008 post about poverty.
10.6 million died in 2003 before they reached the age of 5 (that’s roughly 29,000 children per day). The current famine in Somalia took the lives of 30,000 children in just three months.
Americans aren’t taking care of themselves. Even in the face of a booming fitness industry, obesity is still a, well, large issue in the USA. And it boggles my mind that we can double obesity in 15 years and there’s famine still in the world.
There’s a petition that ONE is working to get to Congress, urging them to donate resources to eradicating the Somalia famine. This is the worst drought to hit the Horn of Africa in more than 60 years. You can sign that petition and get your voice heard. It will make a difference. At the time of this writing, we’re at 94% of the signature goal of 250,000. Let’s exceed 100%.
I’m not saying the blame rests squarely on the shoulders of hefty Americans. I’m merely using the US as an example because this is my home country. In fact, America is, comparatively, doing a fantastic job at donating money and resources than, say, Italy.
However, I do believe that the United States could afford to throw a little weight around.
