HOW DID WE GET HERE?

So Far from Being Well and Living Locally

The year is 1964. The place is a high school auditorium in rural Mississippi. Of the 109 graduating seniors, only two are overweight, no one is obese, and none are diabetic. There was no school nurse dispensing allergy and asthma meds, no known drug problem, and little serious use of alcohol or tobacco.

Fast forward six decades: Mississippi now leads the nation on obesity and diabetes. All across America, weight, chronic disease, and drug addiction have become serious and costly problems. In the 1960’s, 4% of the total population had a chronic disease diagnosis; by 2015, 46% of American children alone had a disease diagnosis. And the trend continues.

How did we get to this place of poor health in little more than half a century? How did we go from garden-fresh and local farms to ultra-processed, drive-thru fast food, and 18-wheelers backed up to school cafeterias? How did it happen so quickly?

More importantly, can considering how we got here help us understand how to build a better world?

The 20th century was a time of dynamic change in America.  World War I began and ended, women got the vote, the Great Depression hit, World War II came and went, Equal Rights and Civil Rights were passed, and technology, always a major change-agent, accelerated in all directions. Especially in medicine and agriculture.

Food processing, antibiotics, and pesticides all came into common use after mid-century. As did electricity. What we now know is that these life-saving, production-boosting, convenience-granting innovations have also had negative impacts on human physiology.

Most new inventions are received with great hope.  Unfortunately, their negative impacts are less recognized, hard to accept, and especially difficult to change once an economy and a society have become dependent on them.  Somewhere along the way, ‘due diligence’ and the ‘precautionary principle’ did not protect the American consumer from the dangerous side of new technologies . . . despite the warnings of experts.

In the 1930’s, soil scientist William Albrecht at the University of Missouri cautioned that farming practices were depleting soil health and thus nutrients in food. (https://cafnr.missouri.edu/2013/08/healthy-soil-and-people/) In the same period, dentist and researcher Weston A. Price in Cincinnati warned that processed foods were reducing the size of children’s palates and crowding teeth, and that poor nutrition would lead to human degeneration. (https://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/nutrition-greats/weston-a-price-dds/#gsc.tab=0) Physician Francis M. Pottenger experimented with cats and pointed to potential dangers of cooking and pasteurization on generational development through loss of essential nutrients. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_M._Pottenger_Jr.)

America, however, was on a technology roll and the warnings of these professionals were discarded in their day. Rather than being researched further, we continued to pollute our soils and ultra-process our foods.

As human physiology through the 20th century became less resilient, technology’s negative impacts mounted. Even Medicine, it can be argued, added to this scenario through its allopathic focus on pharmaceutical treatments, its failure to understand and give nutritional support, and its lack of attention to root causes of disease, including pollutants and other technology-generated impacts,

Significant social changes were also having an impact on human health.  As homemakers began entering the workplace, industry stepped in to fill the gaps, and the American home began a great transformation.  Food, caregiving, housecleaning, and more were increasingly purchased from commercial suppliers.  Fast food chains, day care centers, nursing homes, supermarkets, and healthcare all began expansions that continue today.

Arguably, this confluence of social and technological change gradually left the human body-mind-spirit less able to defend or heal itself, moving us deeper into chronic disease and the ‘polypharmacy’ many patients experience today.  

With medicine unable to tell patients why and how disease occurs, with industry resisting responsibility for its share of damage, and with homes lacking both awareness and time to focus on the wellbeing of families, America’s crisis in public health continues to build.           

Technological advances and social change never stop, and their impacts on social, cultural, and human physiology, both positive and negative, continue. Pharmaceutical medicine still occupies the mainstream and patients still remain largely unaware of why they are sick and how they can heal.

Beyond admonishments to eat better, move more, and quite smoking, the average American expects their physician to offer prescription drugs; they do not expect them to know what caused their symptoms or how to change them. 

So, where does this leave us? If we don’t know the cause, can we have a real cure? And where does this leave wellness as a goal for families, for communities, and for America? 

Hopefully, it leaves us at least willing to consider how we have come to this place so far from being well and living locally. And willing to see ourselves and our culture through a different lens.  Perhaps it also leaves us with a chance to recapture - and even improve on - what has been lost. 

Not the least among the many factors of healing and wellness that need to be recaptured are read food, healthy homes, and supportive communities.

Next Up: Real Food is Good Medicine

Up Ahead: Coming Home to Heal and Community: The Missing Piece in Wellness?