Nation Dying of Obesity Calls for Stricter Gun Control
According to a new poll released today most overweight Americans believe they are more likely to be killed by a gun than die of obesity. The survey, conducted by TDC Opinion Research, asked 10,000 severely overweight Americans about their attitudes toward gun violence in the wake of the recent USCB mass shooting. It found that 73 percent of end-stage diabetes patients listed gun violence as the biggest threat to their health and survival, while 12 percent listed cancer, 7 percent listed SARS and 5 percent listed Wilson's disease. Only 3 percent said they were likely to die from their obesity. âThe doctors say I only have six months to live, tops,â says Jack Pryor, a 48-year-old with type 2 diabetes from Bethlehem, Pa. âBut the way things are going now, Iâm probably going to get shot before then. Weâve got to do something about all these guns; theyâre killing us.â âI personally see 20 to 30 patients die every year from complications of diabetes and metabolic syndrome,â says Dr. Jack Ryan, chief of endocrinology at Jefferson Medical Center in Washington. âIâm tired of seeing good people die. Iâm tired of telling children that they wonât ever see their mommies and daddies again. If only we could just get the guns off the street, maybe things would be different. â The United States averaged slightly less than 9,000 homicides by firearms in 2012, while estimates of Americans killed yearly by the obesity epidemic range from 100,000 to more than 300,000. One study has found that 18 percent of all deaths in the United States are attributable to obesity, and most leading causes of death -- including heart disease and cancer -- have obesity as a risk factor. Despite the grisly headlines, gun violence has been on the decline for several decades. Meanwhile the obesity epidemic is accelerating, with fully a third of Americans now considered medically obese. Although most media analysts want the government to focus on the more emotive issue of gun ownership, some health experts have bizarrely suggested that public policy should focus on tackling problems that actually kill more people. âI think liberals need to wake up and realize that if theyâre interested in helping prevent premature deaths they should reform our food laws, not our gun laws,â says Jean Boudon, professor of medicine at Princeton University Medical School. âSoda kills more people than bullets do. Itâs just that when someone dies of diabetes, itâs not breaking news on CNN.â