In June, the American Medical Association announced that it would officially recognize obesity as a disease. While many still dispute this label, no one can deny obesity’s link to a variety of serious medical conditions, from diabetes to heart disease, nor can they deny the connection between obesity and diet. 

In the fight against obesity, diet is the battleground. The average American’s daily diet consists of high levels of fat, sugar and other unhealthy chemicals derived from unhealthy cooking methods like deep frying.

Americans now live three years longer than they did three decades ago, as the average life expectancy for both men and women increased to 78.2 years. But that isn’t necessarily good news. Researchers say the average amount of time spent living with disabling health conditions increased from 9.4 years to 10.1 years, which shows that although Americans are living longer, they are spending more time fighting illness. 

Many Americans have long recognized there is a problem with the American diet. Those who are very concerned about their health work hard to break the cycle by decreasing their intake of sodium, animal fat and sugar while increasing their intake of protein and fiber. But looking at the nutrition table to determine healthy food is not enough. 

To eat healthier, we need a bit of common knowledge about how our digestive system works. Some Americans control their caloric intake by completely avoiding starch, but that demonstrates a huge misunderstanding of how the human body consumes calories. The major component of starch is glucose, which is the easiest and most important source of energy for the human body. The digestion of starch begins in the mouth with the enzyme ptyalin. Glucose makes it quickly enough to the intestine to escape the process of fermentation by bacterial action where toxic chemicals are generated, thus leaving the burden of dissolving it to the liver.

Thanks to misleading diet advertisements, many Americans are more concerned about the calories in food than the food itself. Almost all foods in grocery stores contain a nutrition label that clearly shows customers the percentage and absolute amount of carbohydrate, sugar, fat, sodium, protein, etc. for a serving of the food. But some of this information may be misleading. For example, a low-fat cupcake has approximately 131 calories. This is a relatively small amount of calories, but the cupcake may digest slowly because it contains too much sugar that might stay in your body for a long time. Sugar may ultimately convert to fat and stay in your stomach. Though converting sugar to fat is a relatively complex process, it’s more likely that you deposit fat to your stomach than sugar if you eat a jelly doughnut as snack every day. 

Conversely, if you take in 131 calories by eating starch, the risk of gaining weight is smaller because starch is easy to digest and thus becomes glucose that provides energy directly to our bodies. Our digestive system is able to identify which foods will provide immediate energy and which will be stored as a secondary energy source.

Mediterranean cuisine is considered one of the healthiest diets on Earth.  Not only does it contain a large amount of antioxidant sources such as olive oil and nuts, but their approach to food is also balanced, with grain and other starchy foods accounting for more than 60 percent of their daily diet. Meat and vegetables are also essential to their meals, but the portion of meat is significantly smaller than what is typically consumed in the United States. 

In a nutshell, limiting yourself to one category of food is hardly a healthy diet. Balancing every meal wisely is the right way. Starch should always account for the largest portion of a meal, followed by vegetables, then meat and dairy products. Never try to avoid one kind of food or skip a meal. The foods that we should really reduce consuming are anything deep fried such as French fries and fried chicken.