18 yr old Grace Price explains the Youth Health Crisis in America 👀

Amazing presentation by Grace Price, an 18-year-old citizen scientist: "I want you all to imagine that you're sitting in class taking notes. You realize you have a missed call. It's from your doctor. You listen to the voicemail and learn that you've been diagnosed with colon cancer, stage 4 colon cancer. What? You're only a sophomore in college, still trying to figure out how life works and not yet financially stable. And you're now expected to go through treatment for an often terminal disease that most don't get until they're at least in their 60s, right?

Hello everyone, I'm Grace Price, an 18-year-old citizen scientist. If you were wondering why the psychiatrist was on the panel, you're definitely wondering why I'm here. And the answer is the pressing need for someone to speak about the dire situation of teenagers' health across America. I am no doctor. I am no doctor, nor even a college graduate, but maybe it takes someone close enough to the problem to question things others have left untouchable, or even worse, they simply accept. As our nation's health declines, we must note that chronic diseases are no longer confined to the elderly. They are now wreaking havoc on my generation.

Two. Here are some of the disheartening stats that you've already heard, but they're really important, so you're going to hear them again. Early onset cancer has increased by 79% in the past three decades. And obesity is on track to replace smoking as the number one preventable cause of cancer. That's an interesting one. One in five of us is obese and one in six of us is overweight. 75% of obese children have the vascular age comparable to that of a 45-year-old. 18.7% have non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, close to 30% are pre-diabetic, and about one in five adolescents report symptoms of anxiety or depression, and one in seven will go on to develop a mental health disorder. Rates of these conditions were close to 0% 50 years ago. Let's keep that in mind, guys. This leads us to ask the question why.

Why is Generation Z plagued with more disease than ever when we are the most technologically advanced. And the reason is ultra-processed foods are the new cigarette for my generation. However, there is more than just chemical additives, loads of sugar, and preservatives in these foods. Our modern diet was formed by years of corruption within food conglomerates, feuds between nutrition science researchers, and backroom bargains that involved our most trusted health institutions. So let's start at the beginning. The shift to sugar and carbs sustaining our population. According to a meta-analysis in the NIH, the US population consumes, quote, more than 300% of the daily recommended amount of sugar, unquote. But why did we start eating so much sugar?

Now let me quote a 1954 speech from the president of the Sugar Research Foundation, the earliest form of the sugar industry. Quote, if you put the middle-aged man on a low-fat diet, it takes just five days for the blood cholesterol to get down to where it should be. If the carbohydrate industries were to recapture this 20% of the calories in the U.S. diet, and if sugar maintained its present share of the carbohydrate market, this change would mean an increase in the per capita consumption of sugar more than a third, with a tremendous improvement in general health. Unquote.

They spent $5.3 million in 2016 to inform people who had no idea what biochemistry even was that sugar is what sustains our population. They also largely discouraged the consumption of animal-based saturated fat, which has sustained humans for a large part of our existence in order to add more sugar and carbohydrates, which didn't previously exist in excess. Does this mean our modern diets was dictated by men in power who had enough money to shift the tides of scientific research towards a mere hypothesis that was in their best interest and to shun research that contested it? The sugar industry is still having this power. $1.8 million was donated to the American Cancer Society by Coca-Cola to support the ideology that cancer is a genetic disease and not a metabolic one that would coincidentally be impacted by our sugar consumption.

So how has this affected the well-being of our country? Well, now we can brag about having the first generation to be raised entirely on fake foods from the minute they were born. Remember how I said our current understanding of food is based on a theory? Well, they did in fact perform an experiment, whether it be intentional or not on Generation Z. This unethical experiment threatens to steal the futures away from me and my peers. Just look at the difference between sugar consumption of an American adult versus a child. American adults consume 103% more than the recommended amount of sugar per day, whereas the average American child consumes 224% more than the recommended amount.

Adults wonder why we are on pills for depression, ADHD and obesity, but the answer is glaring at us. Don't take my word for it, just look at the most recent food pyramid that was released. Lucky Charms Cereals is ranked higher than ground beef. Coincidentally, 95% of the USDA dietary guidelines advisory committee in 2020 was found of conflict of interest with big food and big pharma.

Prescribing lifelong use of drugs like Ozempic, to teens is not the solution. Addressing the corporate capture of our government by big food conglomerates is. We need change now for the sake of the future of our nation. Please consider my generation. Thank you."