I’m not much for politics. I think if anyone should be president, it should be me. “Organic food all around!” Woohoo. (maybe someday).

There has been so much talk here in the US about how our new president is so healthy and what a wonderful example he is to our country, I decided to feature him in one of my articles. He even made it on the cover of Men’s Health magazine (That’s healthy, no?)

My good idea came to a screeching halt as I was doing a little bit of internet research. Seems like some other health professionals made him out to be the “healthiest president this country has seen in a long time” (did I mention I should be president?) and got completely smashed by their readers.

Why? I wondered the same thing until I read that our dear Prez is a smoker or maybe an ex-smoker or people don’t even know what his smoking status currently is.

You can’t imagine the angry comments I came across in some of these articles:

“I can’t believe you would even promote a man who smokes as healthy. What a horrible example to our country”.

“Just because he exercises and eats good foods doesn’t make him healthy, especially if he is a chain smoker”.

The angry comments just went on and on.

One reader attempted to come to the President’s defense by saying that the article was about exercising and healthy eating and our President definitely has things right in that department. (and wrong in others?)

As I sat there reading, I couldn’t help but think “When is bad, unhealthy eating going to receive the same negative stigma as smoking cigarettes?” Ok, I know what you’re thinking. “Isabel, you just can’t compare the two. Smoking cigarettes is just horrible and kills thousands of people each year.”

Consider these interesting facts…

In 2003, Heart Disease was the number 1 cause of death in the United States (28%), with Cancer second (22%).

In 2004, Heart Disease was still number 1 (27%) and Cancer number 2 (23%)

In 2005 the numbers stayed exactly the same. Again, Heart Disease numero uno and Cancer numero dos.

Based on these numbers, why aren’t we getting irate about people eating drive-thru fast food meals as much as we are about people smoking in public? Should we be giving our children the real facts, just like we do about cigarettes? I’m not here to scare the daylights out of anyone, I’m just looking at the facts and wondering where our health efforts really need to be focused.

By no means is this an excuse to drop the burger and start buying packs of Marlboros. Smoking is a nasty habit, for more reasons than I need to list here. However, maybe our society really needs to consider where all our diseases are really coming from and stop putting the WHOLE blame on the Marlboro man.

Ponder on these thoughts for today and stay tuned for Thursday’s newsletter where I’ll give you the real way to combat this countries number one killer.

Oh, and Isabel for President? What do you think?

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Health by Isabel