Stop Subsidizing Obesity

Almost anything you can think of would be a better use of our tax dollars than subsidizing the ingredients in junk food, but every year more than a billion taxpayer dollars do just that. Huge, profitable corporations, like Cargill and Monsanto, have pocketed $18 billion in the last 16 years and turned subsidized crops into junk food ingredients — including high fructose corn syrup.

These taxpayer giveaways are all the more absurd at a time when one-in-three kids is overweight or obese, and obesity-related diseases like diabetes are turning into an epidemic.

Many of these wasteful subsidies are set to expire this year, but industry lobbyists are urging Congress to keep them. In 2008 alone, big agribusinesses spent $200 million on lobbying and campaign contributions.

No one in Congress wants to be seen standing up for taxpayer giveaways to junk food. Cutting wasteful spending while attacking childhood obesity could be the perfect storm we need to push past the junk food industry.

Obesity Quick Facts:

• High-fructose diets impair learning and memory.
• For each additional can of soda drunk daily, the odds of a child becoming obese increases by about 60%.
• Childhood obesity has quadrupled in the last 40 years.
• Drinking one or two sugary drinks per day increases the risk for type 2 diabetes by 25%.
• Once an adult problem, diabetes associated with obesity is increasing among children.