It’s no secret that obesity is a problem in America today — it’s not only a problem but an epidemic.

American’s lives are built around sugar. Babies get a sugary cake to smash and delight in for their first birthday. Children are given candy by doctors, grandparents, receptionists, and at every gathering. You get dessert if you eat your yucky veggies! Little girls' clothing has images of cupcakes and candy on them. Every single holiday for children is centered on when they get sweets. Put candy in the stocking! Go find the chocolate-filled eggs! Valentine's Day heart-shaped candy, Christmastime hot chocolate, birthday cakes, trick-or-treat— let's fill an entire giant bag full of more sugar than a child should consume in a year! From a young age, sugar is a conditioned reward. But it’s killing us.

It only takes a quick trip around any American town to see just how many people are considerably overweight. The issue isn’t one of vanity but one of health. More than one-third of U.S. adults are obese. Children are particularly affected. One in three are overweight or obese— today’s children are predicted to be the first that will not outlive their parents. That’s a frightening truth to consider. So many people are quick to look at obese people and point fingers of blame but is it really just laziness and gluttony? Perhaps we are all living in a society that is making food-like products for profit, created to get people hooked, not in the interest of keeping bodies nutritionally cared for.

Today’s supermarkets are overloaded with processed foods and some 74 percent of packaged products are crammed with obscene amounts of sugar that aren't always marked obviously. Sugar can be hidden behind terms like fructooligosaccharides, galactose, glucitol, glucosamine, ethyl maltol, hexitol, fruit juice, sorghum syrup, inversol, isomalt, maltodextrin— the list goes on and on. Sugar is added to “healthy” foods most wouldn’t even think of as sweet and it is a highly addictive substance. Some experts in the industry have compared its addictive potency to cocaine and have even called sugar poison for the human body.

Starting in the 1970s, the food industry blamed obesity-related illnesses on fats in foods and started taking them out in an attempt to make foods healthier. The engineered fat-free foods tasted terrible and so, the manufacturers added more sugar to help with the taste. When I see a “fat-free” label, I see “crazy amount of sugar.” Foods that are marked “fat-free” are ones that most people that are trying to eat healthier gravitate toward because they think that fat makes you fat. In reality, our bodies can break down and metabolize fats much more easily than sugar. Some fats, like the ones in avocados, are extremely good for us. They can be vital to organs, nerve cells, and the production of energy. So, we've been left with foods that contain none of those happy fats we need and tons of added sugar that wreaks havoc on our bodies.

The human body can only process fructose in the liver. When the liver can’t take anymore, the only thing the body can do with the sugar is turn it into fat— bad fat that destroys the liver, leads to heart disease and other metabolic diseases, and then adds pounds of lumps and rolls all over. The body doesn't even recognize some of the sugars used in processed foods. When the body doesn't recognize a food or know how to process it, again, it can only turn it into fat. Because of the excess insulin used for this process, the brain is tricked into feeling more hungry and the body is tired from the process and lack of nutrients. The bottom line is that more and more research reveals that sugar makes us fat.

So, how much sugar is the body supposed to have? We do need some natural sugars from foods like fruits. But the amount we really need is shocking compared to the amount of refined sugars most people consume. When we eat fruits, we eat the fiber as well, which helps our bodies process the sugar slowly, the way we're supposed to. Refined sugars burn through our bodies like crazy and shock our systems. According to the American Heart Association, male adults should consume no more than 9 teaspoons of added sugar daily. Women should have no more than 6 and children should have no more than 3. A 12-ounce can of regular soda contains around 9 1/3 teaspoons of sugar. One can put an adult male over his cap for an entire day. Furthermore, soda has that pesky fructose in it, which is the sugar that particularly troubles the body. It’s no wonder so many people are sick.

Science has the answers, but without a change in the food industry, nutrition education can only go so far. Consumers can try to choose the best options but even those that are aware of all of the added sugars in foods still have very little options to choose from in the supermarket, other than raw foods. Consumers are bombarded with ads and product placement every day— labels are misleading and inaccurate. There simply has to be a change in the sugarcoated food industry if there's going to be one in the obesity epidemic. This generation is one of change, making big things happen. Perhaps we’re finally on the right road, even if it’s a long one, to bettering one of the most important fundamentals of human life; what we put into our bodies.