Friday, March 19, 2010

Rude Email.

A family member of mine was recently diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes. I have been trying to help her cope with life as a person with a chronic disease. One of the things we have been discussing is proper diet.

The following email was received regarding Pepsi's announcement that they are eliminating sugary drinks to schools worldwide. We were talking on Facebook about the terrible effects sugar has on health. How we thought this was a good move and how people should be more concerned with what they put into their bodies.

The beginning of the rant went something like 'I was in a car accident and I thrust my arm up my rectal and pulled my insides out of my asshole. These are things that should be more important than sugar in soda.'

This was the comment left after I stated statistics, such as, 24 million Americans have Diabetes, 5.7 million are at risk which equates to 1 in 5 people. Unfortunately this ludacris comment was deleted so it is not verbatim. My apologies. However, this section is.

'In an age where single parenting has exploded, less and less time had become devoted to parental participation in physical activity with children. Virtual reality has overtaken actual reality as a past time for children as well -- sitting at a computer being preferred to taking a swing at a real baseball. Cultural paradigm shifts have made monumental contributions to the deterioration of children health.

Gov. Patterson proposed taxing soft drinks as a way of improving children health -- an effort at making soft drinks more expensive and therefore children would drink less. Amazingly he showed NY tax revenue from such a tax increasing each year for the next 10 years -- essentially concluding that soft drink sales would rise (the only logical way tax revenue from their sales could rise).

A half-generation ago sugar substitutes were going to cause a cancer epidemic. In the 1970's scientists were warning about the new ice age. And today I've leave Pollyanna tucked into the fiction category where she belongs.

I've grown tired of being played the fool by a government with an insatiable ability to spend our money. Forgive me for being rude about the latest craze of sugar destroying our health and therefore justifying why taxes on it should increase.

Our children are facing an epidemic for reason that reach far beyond oversimplification. And we have a government that is willing to play the oversimplification game in order to sound-bite a justification for picking my pocket. Using children in this latest scam to tax is despicable.

I am a bright man. I am well aware of health issues and their primary causes. I am also well aware of straw men being used to spin truth. I'm tired and weary and jaded -- my trust has been violated too many times. I do my own intellectual heavy lifting and arrive at the places it leads me.

If this cause has a personal touch for you then I apologize for being so insensitive. I wish you well in making a difference.'

I thought I would reach out to my Diabetic community and ask for your thoughts on this person's opinion.

Ladies? Gentlemen? Please, let the games begin.

*Peace.

2 comments:

  1. I agree that many parents, therefore children, have become sedentary. Exercise is good for all.

    I live in NYS, do I think the soda tax would help in the long run? Not really.
    Sugar is everywhere. So, should All sugar items be taxed? Come on now...

    Diabetes is an epidemic. So are overall health issues. Our health care sucks. But I don't believe that too much sugar "causes" Diabetes. Factor? Maybe.

    I am not entirely sure about this person's comment or POV. We are all entitled to an opinion. "All" will not be pleased with "anything" the government does or does not do.

    Life is about balance. Exercise, eat right, get sleep. Blah blah blah. Ha. :-)

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  2. I understand what he is saying. Basically there are so many more reasons why our children are overweight and we need to teach balance among other things. I get it...kind of strange how he went about it, but I get it.

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