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Take the bull by the hornBy Trent Loos Suddenly, people who care about what is happening in farm and ranch country are coming out of the woodwork. Most recently, I see that a gynecologist from Florida is an expert on childhood obesity and wants her input to be heard, regarding the farm bill. In her plea to get our nation's kids to convert to animal-free diets, she failed to mention that the third leading cause of death in the United States is medical errors by doctors. Incidentally, she has contributed to those statistics because her mistake killed a patient in 2004. Rather than seek solutions to the problem of childhood obesity and malnourishment, she chooses to blame the halls of Congress for all of these troubles. The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that about one-third of U.S. children are overweight or at risk of becoming overweight. That, in itself, provides a platform for all groups who have an agenda to rise up and blame the farm bill for kids and adults being overweight, ridden with diabetes, prone to heart disease or stroke and just plain fat. Have you noticed that we have even generated a warm, fuzzy word like obese, instead of just calling it fat. "I am obese," must be easier to live with than being fat. First and foremost, if your kid is fat, it is not some elected bureaucrat's fault but yours, as a parent. Proper kid health is a combination of a good diet and exercise. There are no silver bullets. But, more importantly, our kids are not only fat but also malnourished. The National Institute of Heath indicates that only 10 percent of all teenage girls and 25 percent of teenage boys are getting enough daily calcium. Maybe that has to do with the fact that the consumption of fluid milk is lower than any time in recorded history. I am curious: How much calcium is there in a diet soda? We, in the food industry, tend to follow incorrect dietary guidelines as well. Nutritional fat is essential in our diets. In fact, science indicates that when we drink 2 percent or, even worse, skim milk, we have eliminated some best sources of the calcium and other essential nutrients we can offer our kids. But, because we have waged war on fat, we don't try to educate the consumer about the differences between good fat and bad fat. If you were to read the journal of Samuel Hearne, a late 1700s explorer, he documented that the Native Americans would kill the fattest animal in the herd and consume that fat as a necessary nutrient. Others, who have studied the native people of both North America and Australia, report that tooth decay was not present. I don't think you need to have very many lessons in history to understand that the hunter/gatherer populations consumed higher levels of animal protein and fat. Not surprisingly, their physical condition was documented as some of the best ever recorded for human beings. Fast-forward to 2007. The Center for Disease Control also indicates that 2.4 million children are iron deficient, which leads to behavioral problems and cognitive delays. Given the detrimental long-term effects and high prevalence of iron deficiency, its prevention in early childhood is an important public health issue. Iron deficiency anemia is the most common nutritional deficiency disease worldwide. As more of our kids have limited meat consumption, we put their health and well being at risk, both mentally and physically. We cannot ignore the growing body of evidence indicating that youth suicide is at crisis levels in the United States. That evidence also says our mental health depends on the proper consumption of animal fats, particularly Omega-3 fatty acids. Depression will continue to grow as a medical problem until we recognize that animal fat from milk, meat, and eggs are truly essential nutrients. We can look at all of the national and worldwide statistics we want to, but until the real culprits accept responsibility for an expanding waistline, we will not see a reduction in belt sizes. Last weekend, my five-year-old daughter was having a John Wayne movie marathon. In one movie, Wayne's character said, "Out here, men take care of their own problems." My 9 nine-year-old daughter had a friend over, who had never even heard of John Wayne. I fear that soon we will have a whole society of people that will never even consider the notion of taking care of their own problems, if we don't grab the bull by the horns today. Editor's note: Trent Loos is a sixth generation United States farmer, host of the daily radio show, Loos Tales, and founder of Faces of Agriculture, a non-profit organization putting the human element back into the production of food. Get more information at www.FacesOfAg.com, or e-mail Trent at trent@loostales.com. 11/19/07 Date: 11/15/07
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