Researchers say they have turned up more evidence that U.S. government policies that subsidize foods such as meat, cheese and corn are helping make Americans fatter and unhealthier.They found that people who ate these foods the most were also more likely to be overweight or obese and to have unhealthy levels of cholesterol and blood sugar.
"The U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Dietary Guidelines for Americans emphasize consumption of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, protein and moderate amounts of dairy, while recommending limited consumption of saturated fats, sugars, salt and refined grains," Siegel's team writes in the Journal of the American Medical Association's JAMA Internal Medicine.
"At the same time, current federal agricultural subsidies focus on financing the production of corn, soybeans, wheat, rice, sorghum, dairy and livestock, the latter of which are in part via subsidies on feed grains."
The policies have been controversial for years, with health experts saying the U.S. government should drop subsidies on beef, dairy and other products and instead help farmers raise cheaper fruits and vegetables. But USDA and other experts argue that it's not so simple to tie subsidies to American eating habits and say the beef, dairy and grain industries are important for the U.S. economy.
"The present finding that higher subsidy scores are associated with adverse cardiometabolic risk highlights the effect that agricultural subsidies may be having on health disparities in the United States, in part due to the lower cost per calorie of unhealthier food and the higher cost per calorie of healthier food," they wrote.
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