November 8, 2007

Take a Minute To Help Millions Of School Children Fight Obesity

As you may know, the Farm Bill is coming up for vote soon in Congress. It may surprise you that the bill contains subsidies for foods high in fat, cholesterol and sugar. Basically, the government buys up foods like hamburgers, bacon, cheese and fatty other products and feeds them to our children at schools and through food assistance programs.

In turn, millions of dollars of donations are given to the congressman and senators that support a bill that keeps the profits rolling in for these unhealthy foods the government buys.

The only way to stop this practice that has been going on for years is to stop the subsidies. And you can help.

An amendment to the farm bill titled the FRESH Amendment (S. 2228) was introduced by Sens. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Richard Lugar (R-IN) that would reduce the amount of these subdidies. Currently, more than 80 percent of food production subsidies support meat, sugar, oil, dairy products, and animal feed. All these foods have been proven to increase cancers, high blood pressure, obesity and related diseases. They are recommended to be minimized, if not avoided completely. Childhood obesity is rising at a rapid rate, in part to this practice.

In fact, the video How To Get Fat Without Even Trying with Peter Jennings points to the same practice of subsidizing unhealthy foods as one of the causes of obesity in our country today.

You can call your congressman and senators to express your support for the FRESH Amendment and help reduce the amount of unhealthy foods being fed to our children. Get the number to your representatives here.