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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe oncoming military draft (diabetes-related)
I heard Katie Couric say this morning that by 2050, 1 in 3 Americans will be diabetic. I thought about all the right wingers who luv-luv-luv their corporate food-processing guys and their military, and of how they are in for a huge shock when THEIR sons/grandsons/nephews may end up getting drafted when the supply of eager-to-serve "lessers" cannot join because they are obese and or diabetic, and are rejected by the military.
The same goes for many of our necessary workers like police, firefighters, EMTs, rtc. These jobs REQUIRE fitness and workers often have to pass strict physicals.
The poorest among us are often the ones who suffer the most because of the shitty diets they have from childhood to ..well forever..
Our military will not just disband because they cannot find enough people.. There may HAVE to be a draft just to make the numbers. The youngsters raised on good quality foods (and who are lean & mean) may just end up being in the service of our country.
It might behoove our legislators to look beyond their own 2 year./6 year terms, and to start really thinking about how their legislation now, may end up taking the lives of their grandchildren's children.
Liz Szabo, USA TODAY 4:03 p.m. EDT May 3, 2014
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/05/03/diabetes-rises-in-kids/8604213/
The prevalence of diabetes in children shot up dramatically between 2000 and 2009, a new study shows.
The amount of type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune disease, climbed 21% from 2000 to 2009, to 1.93 per 1,000 children. The prevalence of type 2 diabetes which is associated with obesity jumped more than 30% in the same period, to a rate of 0.46 per 1,000 kids, according to a study presented Saturday at the Pediatric Academic Societies' meeting in Vancouver, Canada.
snip
"These increases are serious," Dabelea says. "Every new case means a lifetime burden of difficult and costly treatment and higher risk of early, serious complications." The new study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, is the most comprehensive available, said David Ludwig, director of the New Balance Foundation Obesity Prevention Center at Boston Children's Hospital, who was not involved in the study. The research, called the SEARCH for Diabetes in Youth Study, included 3 million children and adolescents in different regions of the USA.
Researchers acknowledge that the study doesn't include information from the last five years. "We don't know what happened in the last five years," Ludwig says. "Most likely, things have gotten worse."
snip
In the past, type 2 diabetes was considered a disease of middle or old age, developing in overweight or obese adults, Ludwig says. The fact that kids are developing this disease so young shows the seriousness of the country's obesity crisis, he says. The increase in type 2 diabetes appears to be driven by increasing rates of obesity, lack of exercise and low-quality diets, Ludwig says. Scientists are less sure about the reasons for increasing rates of type 1 diabetes. But some evidence suggests that it may be related to changes in the microbiome the collection of bacteria and other microbes that live in and on the body, especially in the digestive tract, Ludwig says.
snip
Ex Lurker
(3,816 posts)I expect diabetes will have a cure by then.
yeoman6987
(14,449 posts)I would like to see a cure for it. Our medical is the best especially with finding different cures for things. I would like to see some concentration on curing it.
SoCalDem
(103,856 posts)Neither of us can figure out why he got it..
Ex Lurker
(3,816 posts)The Drs think a virus killed off a certain type of cell in his pancreas. That's an imperfect description of what happened, but that's my translation of a very technical medical explanation.
handmade34
(22,757 posts)for type 2 (type 1 is different)
diet and exercise is the cure, for not all, but many
yeoman6987
(14,449 posts)it is so hard to see those we care about suffer with diabetes... I have seen friends and family die, lose legs and more from the scourge of diabetes...
I am all too aware that changing diet and habits is near impossible for some... it is a matter of life or death though
processed food (including sugar) is so destructive and I am livid we collectively as a country cannot bring ourselves to regulate the food industry
handmade34
(22,757 posts)JEFF9K
(1,935 posts)... but I doubt many conservatives are getting aboard. It may be up to progressives to defend the country.
pinboy3niner
(53,339 posts)Diagnoses that can't be disproven by a simple test or exam. They won't have to worry about a draft.
SoCalDem
(103,856 posts)there may be too small of a pool of "eligibles"..that is why a mandatory draft (inescapable) may be a fact of life.. The elite colleges will suffer as well when the 18 yr old scions of old wealth don their fatigues..:evilgin:
I cannot see the military downsizing as they lose their "volunteers" to disease & incapacity.
Hekate
(90,793 posts)...that the situation was the impetus for government-subsidized school lunch programs. Future draftees just HAD to be healthier. It takes awhile to get there, but in time, they were.
I wonder if that earlier effort was why my home state still had an excellent low-cost lunch program into the 1950s and 1960s, with a real kitchen on each campus, real cooks, and meals that provided 1/3 of our daily nutritional requirements.
We got used to the vast majority of children being healthy. No more rickettsia, pellagra, or goiter.
Then the national diet was corrupted, and now we've got little kids with diabetes.
Ex Lurker
(3,816 posts)according to one of Ambrose's books. There were also a surprisingly high number of disqualifications for mental issues.
Jimmy Stewart was rejected for flight training because he was 6-4 and 135 lbs. He had to gain weight before they would take him.