Juggling Dynamite

We traveled in France this summer and could not help but note the visibly lower body mass of the population, particularly among children and young people. It reminded us of how North American people used to look in the ’80’s.  Our observations were not imagined.

The interactive graph below shows, by color, the percentage of obese people over the age of 18 as at 2016. In 1975, the incidence of obesity was fairly uniform in the developed world, about 10% of North Americans and less than 9% in France.  Today, the number has more than tripled to 36% in America, with Canada, the UK and Australia also nearly 30%.  Over the same period, obesity in France has doubled to just over 20%.  Click the play bar to see how dramatically the problem has accelerated globally since 1975, and even just since 2000.

There are a bunch of factors that have decreased physical activity levels to be sure.  But the biggest factor here is the type of food we are eating.   Fast, garbage food is infiltrating many countries, but diets in France still remain visibly fresher and portion size much smaller than in North America and the UK.

Our processed food choices and policies are driving an epidemic of poor health, undermining our productivity and bankrupting our sick-care system.  We literally cannot afford to continue with the status qu0.   The good news is that we know how to evolve, we just need to insist that we do.

So much to understand and improve in this area–but the upside of doing so is enormous.

Zach Bush, MD is a triple board certified physician specializing in Internal Medicine, Endocrinology and Metabolism, as well as in Hospice and Palliative care. The director of M Clinic in Virginia, Dr. Bush has published peer-reviewed articles and book chapters in the areas of infectious disease, endocrinology, and cancer.

This is a mind-blowing conversation that explores new insights into the mechanisms behind human health and longevity. It’s about the massive and misunderstood impact of industrial farming, chemical pesticides, the pharmaceutical industry and even errant Western medical practices have on both human and planetary health. Here is a direct video link.

As the US, European and UK central banks drenched the world in dollar, euro and pound QE liquidity 2010 to 2016, developed market interest rates fathomed record lows and their currencies weakened relative to many emerging market currencies. In response, emerging market borrowers reached for lower interests rates with foreign denominated loans (primarily dollars). Today, according to the Institute of International Finance, corporate debt in foreign currencies is the highest ever at $5.5 trillion.

A standout in this area, Turkey fueled a period of rapid growth by borrowing foreign-currency debt (mostly dollars) more than any other major emerging market. With the Lira losing 40% against the dollar in August so far, it is already clear that many borrowers cannot repay their dollar-denominated loans.

Turkey is not the only country now swamped with skyrocketing borrowing costs and spreading defaults, see Indian rupee tumbles to record low amid spillover from ‘full blown currency crisis’ in Turkey and Fall of the Turkish Lira raises concerns for emerging markets. This has broad domino risks through highly levered sectors like real estate, banking and financial markets, globally.

As we have been noting for some time, the payback for reckless financial choices is inevitable and will not be ‘contained’.  With debt and asset valuations at obscene levels in most countries today, the global financial system is more fragile than ever.  It has only been a question of which spark will set off the next contagion.  Emerging market debt defaults have served that role many times in the past, they may well serve sufficient this cycle as well.