If you look at photos of the 1950s and 1960s, you’ll notice one common thing: everyone in the picture is slimmer and healthy looking. Pictures of countless people in shape is a thing of the past. Today, it seems like we’re all struggling with keeping our bodies in shape and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Dieting is a 72 billion dollar-a-year busines, yet we continue to get larger and larger.
COVID-19 only exacerbated the problem. When the world stopped, we all stopped, too. We moved less and we ate more. That horrible combination has become a huge problem for Blacks, turned it into a pandemic all its own. The problem is that Blacks have an incredible relationship with sugar.
Historically, Blacks consume more sugar that whites. Between 2005-2010, Blacks consumed sugar in over 20 percent of their diet compared to whites at 16 percent. Blacks on average have less options when it comes to eating a sugar-regulated diet than all other races. That, combined with a Black medical history of not being able to tolerate a diet filled with sugar or salt, makes this a huge problem for the community.
“I try to eat as healthy as I can but no matter what I try, nothing seems to work,” said Pamela, from Akron.
The truth is our relationship with sugar is hard to explain. The way it breaks down in our body is one thing. But the other fact is that, simply put, sugar is in everything. So, let’s talk about where it is, and how we can control it better.
There are three types of sugar: sucrose, fructose, and lactose. The three act differently in the body, but all contribute to added calories in your diet and need to be monitored.
Sucrose is common sugar. It’s a disaccharide, a molecule composed of two monosaccharides: glucose and fructose. Sucrose is produced naturally in plants, from which table sugar is refined.
Fructose, or fruit sugar, is a simple ketonic monosaccharide found in many plants where it is often bonded to glucose to form the disaccharide sucrose. It is one of the three dietary monosaccharides, along with glucose and galactose, that are absorbed directly into the blood during digestion.
Lactose is a disaccharide. It is a sugar composed of galactose and glucose subunits and has the molecular formula C12H22O11. Lactose makes up around 2–8% of milk (by weight). The name comes from lac (gen. lactis), the Latin word for milk, plus the suffix -ose, which is used to form the names of sugars.
What needs to be understood about all three sugars is how the body uses them, and how it impacts our daily diets.
The term “empty calories” comes from the fact that processed sugar, stripped of all its nutrients, does not create the feeling of being full. So, we never become satisfied by eating foods loaded with sugar. Processed foods are the worst because the body breaks these foods down more quickly than natural foods, which makes our blood sugar levels spike.
If you are going to consume any food with sugar, substitute eating fruits, and vegetables. These foods, loaded with fructose, offer a better solution and healthier choice because of the way the body breaks down the natural sugar from fruit. The recommended daily intake is 2 to 3 servings of fruit daily. Taking this action will leave you fuller and create more balance in your diet.
SUGAR AND YOUR BODY
The complicated relationship of sugar in the body is critical to understand if you struggle with illness due to poor diet and weight gain. The ramifications of not watching your sugar intake can be devastating if left unchecked.
African Americans simply need to understand that sugar is slowly killing our race. The damage done from consuming large amounts of sugar is quite dangerous. The most serious issue is organ damage associated with hypertension and diabetes causing retinopathy, nephropathy, and lower-extremity amputations. To date, research suggests that underlying genetic mechanisms may be responsible for the increased frequency of high blood pressure and kidney disease in African Americans.
For Black women, the largest cause of death is heart failure due to obesity. The combination of poor diet and increased sugar intake is the cause of this problem. Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) can be blamed for killing over 50,000 Black women annually and only 48 percent are aware of the high risk associated with diet and lack of exercise.
NOW FOR THE BAD NEWS
The consumption of sugar not only causes blood levels to spike, and diabetes and hypertension. It also attacks the body’s anti-aging genes. In various chronic diseases these anti-aging genes are deactivated with altered immune responses. This means that the body literally stops or begins to fall apart as we consume too much sugar.
There is no single greater threat to people of color than how much food we consume and, more importantly, how much and what type of sugar. In the US, sugar is used to sell more products, stabilize food, and make everything taste better. As of 2015, there are over 600,000 foods in the American food industry and 80 percent of them contain added sugar.
So, resist the urge to fall prey to your cravings, develop a better relationship with food, and play it smart. The good decisions you make today will positively impact the rest of your life.֍
