If obesity were a war, we’d be shamefully losing that war. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, obesity reached the historic level of 42.4% in 2018, with black women comprising the highest group at 56.9%. We know that obesity is associated with several chronic diseases, such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease, among others. We also know that obesity and other chronic illnesses have been implicated as a major risk factor in COVID-19, often resulting in hospitalizations and death.
But why are obesity levels so high? While exercise does play a role in weight status, the food system is arguably the biggest factor. The most unhealthy, disease-promoting foods are often the cheapest and most easily accessible. Below is a history on how things got this way and why it’s going to be difficult—but not impossible—to change.
Colonial Times
In 1776, agriculture was the single most important industry in the US. 90% of the population subsisted on small, family-owned farms that produced just enough to feed their families.
The more prosperous farmers further increased their wealth by supplying the West Indies with corn and flour, selling surplus crops or animals in local markets, or exporting produce to slave colonies.
Homestead Act of 1862
Around 1840, increased industrialization and urbanization enabled farmers to take advantage of a new and lucrative domestic market.
The federal government used the Homestead Act of 1862 to also take advantage of this opportunity. Tracts of 160 acres were issued to about 400,000 families. The land was available at very favorable rates for farmers willing to settle and cultivate the land.
As a result, the number of farms in the US grew from 2 million in 1860 to 6 million by 1906, with a corresponding increase in people living on farms, from 10 million in 1860 to 31 million in 1905.
Tycoons seeking a market for their newly constructed railroads also sponsored reduced-rate land and subsidized the relocation of hundreds of thousands of farmers from Germany, Scandinavia, and Britain.
This influx of farmers from different parts of Europe resulted in diverse farming techniques in the US, as each immigrant group adapted their Old-World traditions, experiences, and ideas to their new homeland.
As the pioneers successfully cultivated the Great Plains, most American farms were prosperous in the first years of the 20th century. That’s why organized farm groups wanted the government to use the years between 1910–1914 as a statistical benchmark, called “parity,” for the level of prices and profits they felt they deserved.
The Great Depression, Subsidies, and Fortification
These glory days for American farmers were short-lived. The combination of the effects of over-farming during World War 1, the Stock Market Crash in 1929, and the dust bowl in 1930 nearly devastated Depression-era American farmers, many of whom went bankrupt and lost their farms.
To help stabilize the country’s food supply, the federal government approved the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1929 and the Agricultural Adjustment Act in 1933. Designed to stabilize prices by preventing a surplus of crops, both efforts provided subsidies to farmers who agreed not to produce corn, wheat, cotton, rice, peanuts, tobacco, or milk. Although these Acts failed to stabilize crop prices, the debate about the value of farm subsidies—which are now almost exclusively granted to large corporate farming conglomerates—affect our food supply chain to this day.
As the Depression wore on and US citizens were forced into soup lines, fortified and enriched foods were introduced to combat widespread malnutrition. Though now controversial, these processed foods provided an economical method to increase vitamin and mineral intake at a time when many people were malnourished. Fortified foods have been credited with virtually eliminating rickets, pellagra, and other common diseases caused by nutrient deficiencies, but they have also directly led to an over-abundance of processed and ultra-processed foods in the American diet.
Farming Consolidation and Specialization
American farms began another huge transition 20 years later. The number of people on farms dropped from over 20 million in 1950 to less than 10 million in 1970. More farms were consolidated or sold during this period than in any other period in our history, and the average size of farms went from around 205 acres in 1950 to almost 400 acres in 1969.
As the number of farms (and farmers) decreased, however, their overall productivity increased. Farmers increasingly embraced the economic reality that investing in machines specifically designed to produce a certain crop—then maximizing that investment by specializing in that crop—resulted in increased productivity with decreased production costs.
Chemical Contributions
The embrace of one-crop, specialized farming techniques has increased reliance on synthetic fertilizers and chemical pesticides, since these new croplands lost the natural suppression of weeds and other pests once provided naturally by crop diversity.
First introduced in the early 1900s, synthetic and mineral fertilizer applications on US crops nearly doubled between 1964 and 1976, and pesticide use increased by 143%.
Chemical and pharmaceutical agents like antibiotics were also widely used in newly industrialized models of meat, milk, and egg production. As early as the 1940s, research proved farmers could use artificial steroids to breed animals that required less feed but gained weight faster.
Government Intervention and the Rise of the Mega Farm
In the late 1950s, US Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson called on farmers to “get big or get out.” Since the savings realized by consolidated farms eventually result in lower food prices for the rest of the country, large farms still enjoy support from the federal government.
So the number of small farms declined while on each farm involved in meat, dairy, and egg production the number of animals rose dramatically. In a domino effect, many other industries in the food system, including animal slaughtering and processing, rose as well.
Today, huge farming concerns account for most food production in the US: half of all US cropland is on farms with at least 1,000 acres. Most US poultry and pork products come from facilities with an annual production of more than 200,000 chickens or 5,000 pigs, and most egg-laying hens are born, bred, and die in facilities built to house over 100,000 birds at a time.
The federally funded farm subsidy program developed during the Great Depression to protect small, family-owned farms now controls more than $20 billion a year of taxpayer money.
The funds are currently allotted for farm subsidies in the form of direct payments, crop insurance, and loans meant to protect and preserve the nation’s food supply by covering farmers’ losses in case of natural, economic, or political disasters.
The process to apply for a subsidy has reportedly gotten more complex since the 1980s. Out of the estimated 2.1 million farms in the US, about 39% receive subsidies.
And most of the handouts are granted to the largest producers of US subsidized crops like grains and cotton.
Crop Subsidies
Weather conditions, changes to market demand, and economic/political events beyond their control all make farming a risky industry for the people who supply our food chain. To ensure a reliable food supply during both good and bad markets, most industrialized nations subsidize farming to some degree.
In the US, almost $170 billion of our tax money was dedicated to subsidizing the production of corn, soybeans, wheat, rice, sorghum, dairy, and livestock between 1995 and 2010 alone. Yet numerous studies have found that consuming calories from the foods subsidized by the government increased the risk of obesity and chronic diseases.
According to an article published by The New York Times, the US “devotes less than 1 percent of farm subsidies to support the research, production, and marketing” of fruits and vegetables. This is despite the fact that federal guidelines recommend that adults eat at least 1½ to 2 cups of fruit and 2 to 3 cups of vegetables daily to maintain a healthy diet.
Corn and High-fructose Corn Syrup
Corn is by far the nation’s largest crop, planted on more than 90 million acres of land. Most of the output is used to feed livestock and produce ethanol gas.
In 1977, high-fructose corn syrup was introduced to the US market. The objective was to provide a cost-effective substitute for high-priced imported cane and beet sugar.
Because it is cheap and readily available, high fructose corn syrup is difficult to avoid. It is commonly added to the US food supply, and not just in the obvious items like sodas, candy, and desserts. High fructose corn syrup is also added to salad dressing, bread, and the convenience foods—like boxed macaroni and cheese or frozen dinners—that many time-strapped or low-income Americans rely on to feed their families.
It’s debatable whether high-fructose corn syrup is worse than any other kind of sweetener. But the adverse effects of consuming too many calories from sweeteners (and the sheer number of foods and drinks processed with high fructose corn syrup) are not.
Neither is the fact that in 2015, 23.4 million people had diagnosed diabetes, compared to only 1.6 million in 1958.
According to the Mayo Clinic, “too much added sugar of all kinds […] can contribute unwanted calories that are linked to health problems, such as weight gain, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and high triglyceride levels. All of these boost your risk of heart disease.”
GMOs
GMOs, or Genetically Modified Organisms, are living beings that have had their genetic code changed in some way. While conventional cross breeding has been around since the 19th century, GMOs are produced by inserting genetic material directly into individual cells in a lab.
Now so prevalent in the US food supply they are difficult to avoid, GMOs were developed and accepted rapidly:
1973: The first successfully genetically modified organism was developed.
1975: The Asilomar Conference paved the way for continued research and development of GMOs. The Conference attendees outlined guidelines to address GMO-related public health and safety concerns expressed by government officials, scientists, and the media.
1980: General Electric was awarded the first patent for bacteria that were genetically engineered to break down crude oil, providing incentive for other corporations to quickly develop other GMOs for commercial use.
1982: Humulin became the first human medication produced by a genetically modified organism. Developed from bacteria that had been genetically engineered to synthesize human insulin, it was approved to treat diabetes.
1987: Calgene’s Flavr Savr tomato became the first food crop to be approved for commercial production by the USDA after five years of extensive health and environmental testing. Their genetic modifications resulted in tomatoes with increased firmness and an extended shelf life.
1995: The first pesticide-producing crop was approved by the EPA to provide farmers with crops that are easier to cultivate. Bt corn was approved the following year, and this gene is now present in the majority of corn harvested in the US, as are crops genetically engineered to resist herbicides so that it is easier for farmers to control unwanted plants in their fields.
As with fortified foods in the 1930s, genetically engineered crops can increase nutrition value. For example, Golden Rice was developed in 2000 specifically to combat vitamin A deficiency, which kills an estimated 500,000 people a year worldwide. It remains to be seen whether these efforts will have unforeseen consequences the way over-processed foods do today.
At this point, it takes a conscious effort to avoid GMOs in produce. As much as 92% of US corn is genetically engineered, as is 94% of soybeans and 94% of the cottonseed oil often used in food products.
While there are currently no edible genetically engineered animals approved by the FDA, by 2009 livestock consumed 80% of the antibiotic drugs sold in the US, making it extremely difficult for people who eat meat to avoid ingesting GMO-derived substances.
Your Health is in Your Hands
The rise in obesity and the growing problem of illness-producing food and land has come about, as you’ve seen, from the combination of a laudable desire to nourish the greatest number of people with an unhealthy obsession with material gain. And those two motivators were shared by huge profit-driven farms, chemical companies eager to get their products into the market, and a government under the sway of lobbyists from both.
When looking at the food system problem from a policy level, one can find it daunting to envision making meaningful change. Too many people make money off of you being sick.
But each of us can contribute to making individual changes that will add up to systemic improvements over time.
The fact that our food is made for profit allows us to cast our ballot every time we buy something. Here are ways to vote for health, both for yourself and our environment:
- Choose to eat locally sourced fresh vegetables and fruits on a daily basis
- Eating beans, lentils, and intact whole grains
- Drink 8-12 glasses of water daily
- Get in at least 150 minutes of exercise weekly
Ultimately, these habits are not only more likely to improve your health, but they will cause a favorable shift in the supply of built environments promoting physical activity, and in healthy foods for all of us.
About the Author
Alissa Nash is a published author and founder of ThatIsWhatIDo.com, a strategic marketing firm for small business owners. While she started her career as a Diversity Specialist, this former VP of Learning & Development has spent nearly 30 years gaining knowledge and insight into effective methods to influence human behavior. She firmly believes that, in addition to promoting the best of both conservative and progressive philosophies, the community needs the change management, knowledge transfer, brand development and strategic thinking skills of a variety of professionals to help communicate and implement the ideas and solutions championed by our sociologist and political scholars.