one-fifth.

Twenty percent of American teenagers are overweight or obese; a full eighteen percent of adolescents are at or above the 95th percentile for weight for their height and age, as compared to averages from 2000 (non statisticians: this means that they weigh more than 95 percent of children their height and age as measured in the year 2000). Roughly 25-30% of children have nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, the leading cause of liver disease in adults.

The road that these children are on is not a good one. It leads to preventable chronic diseases that rob people of self-determination, autonomy, and freedom – also known as wellness. For when you do not have your health, nothing else matters in your life. People who are trapped in their own bodies are not free. That we are creating this future for children breaks my heart into a hundred pieces, because I am a person who has suffered from food addiction and healed from eating disorders. Once you cross that line, and begin to use food as a drug for self-soothing and distraction and escape, it is a Pandora's box that isn't easily closed. Look around. How long can you go without being shown a commercial, a billboard, a lighted sign inviting you out of your thoughts and into fried, sugared something? Dr. Susan Peirce Thompson has been addicted to methamphetamine and other "hard" drugs throughout her lifetime, but is emphatic that her food addiction has been the hardest thing to treat. For, dear reader: you must eat. You cannot put food in a box and throw away the key, the way alcoholics are taught to do with liquor. Dr. Thompson invented Bright Line Eating, strikingly similar to the twelve-step program I participated in during high school to heal from anorexia, bulimia, and binge-eating disorder (yep, I had all three of these, depending on the day). In her program, you don't eat flour or sugar. Ever. I needed this for a time until I was ready to renegotiate my relationship with food. (And even now that I haven't binged or purged in years, my diet is largely devoid of those two nutrient-empty ingredients.)

We are raising children who are addicted to the ultraprocessed, highly palatable, addictive foods that adorn our grocery stores and too many of our pantries. This food is not food. It is poison. Ultraprocessed food consumption is linked to innumerable chronic diseases, and it comprises nearly two thirds of the average American's daily diet. These foods are unrecognizable, processed far beyond any single ingredient's natural forms. Our bodies do not know what to do with this input, and are quickly overwhelmed with the surplus, literally jamming our metabolic machinery into dysfunction.

I am angry that these foods do not come with a warning label. I am angry that they are handed out like harmless incentives - including at the medical residency orientation I attended last week, when various forms of processed, packaged sugar/flour combinations were passed out for people willing to participate in the lecturer's question and answer section. I am angry that these poisons are fed to my patients who are trying to heal in the hospital (often from preventable, chronic diseases that were caused by this poison in the first place). I am angry that pharmaceuticals and surgeries are being peddled to families in this country as the only solutions that could possibly help their child. These surgeries and drugs are not inexpensive, and they are not without harm or consequence to grown ups - let alone to developing humans. Need I remind you of the risk of bowel obstruction with tirzepatide and other GLP-1s or the astonishing FAILURE rate of gastric bypass surgery, not to mention the nutrient deficiencies associated with permanently losing parts of your precious digestive system? I ask you, dear reader, as a parent or grandparent or brother or sister or someone who loves someone who is struggling with food (and I KNOW you know someone, because nearly ALL of us are): how much more good could we do if we were willing to spend this time, energy, and money to enact the structural changes that the children in our country deserve?

You're probably wondering by now - what do I propose? In addition to being the change - and this might just mean packing your lunch and setting the example for others (especially the children in your life!) that you eat on purpose with purpose and spend your twenty four hours meaningfully, taking the time it takes to prepare nourishing, whole-food meals. This might mean cooking with and for others, and introducing them to the idea of creating beautiful and delicious food that nourishes spirit, soul, and stomach. This might mean creating your own rebellious micro-culture of health (like Shawn Stevenson did for himself and his family), and rejecting the norms that this sick society has set forth (like the idea that it's acceptable to put fried food and sugar in your body for a meal on a regular basis - !!).

Metabolic illness is a disease that almost all Americans have: fully eighty-eight percent of us have some degree of metabolic dysfunction. Your metabolism isn't something that can be fixed by spending five minutes of the day for wellness; it's dynamic, and always responding to your stress levels, your exposures, your inputs (food and screens and plastic and pesticides), and your rest. This work requires 24 hours of commitment every day, and true healing is going to require big shifts. But it all starts with small changes, and that's what inspires me. You can be the change right here, and right now. The next generation is watching and learning from you.