"A bowl full of sugar makes the what go down?"

In Malawi, as in most African provinces, having personal nannies and chefs is a common luxury for the majority of home owners. So it wasn't abnormal for my sisters and I to live having a gardener, chef and nanny around the house. On this particular night taking care of both of us was Mokendazea, our kindhearted chef and caretaker. Mokendazea had much more experience in the kitchen than with watching over two children which boded for the possibility of 'interesting complications' to occur.

My father was a Foreign Area Officer in the US Army when I was growing up. So he had an obligation to attend embassy dinner parties and functions together with his wife, my mother. After returning from a night out my mother walked Mokendazea to the door while having the usual debrief on how things had gone.

"How was Jaime?" My mother inquired, "Did he give you any trouble at bedtime?"

"No Madame, everything went well." Mokendazea paused, as if his conscience was at odds with itself. "It's just... well..." Again pausing, Mokendazea peered at my mother with unease. This instantly caught my mothers attention, snapping her out from the glamour of the evenings events and into the moment.

"What is it Mokendazea!?" startled by a countless number of dangerous scenarios playing through her head.

"Oh Madam it was nothing too serious." Seeing my mothers disposition had alarmed Mokendazea and trying to put her worry at ease he answered with what he hoped was a reassuring statement, "It's just in Malawi we do things differently. I thought it was strange that in America you let children eat a whole bowl of sugar. That's all I just don't think they should eat an entire bowl of sugar its not healthy."

"Excuse me?!" To say she was a little perplexed by this would be an understatement.

"Well yes. Before putting them to bed, Madame, Lindsay said Madame lets them eat a bowl of sugar." Mokendazea explained, "At first I refused to give it to them but Jaime also whined with his sister as they begged for their bowl of sugar. I know America is different Madame but maybe not a whole bowl of sugar?"

Taken aback, my mother made it clear to Mokendazea that from then on he was to listen only to her instructions and even if we were the children of the house our demands were not to be acknowledged. Suffice it to say even at a young age my sister and I had wittingly taken advantage of the situation and had sneaked our way into what even the kids from Marry Poppins had never gotten, not just a spoonful, but an entire bowl full of sugar. 

Now no mother, even an American one, would let her child eat an entire bowl of sugar. That would be preposterous! Or would they? 

What if instead of an Actual bowl of sugar it looked like this:

Or this:

or even this:

The funny thing is we DO let our kids eat bowls of sugar! Hell, in our society we often feed OURSELVES, grown members of society, bowls of sugar. We just don't know it, or if we do, we don't care to change much.

Now some might be thinking "Well that may be the case in other families but not in mine! We eat healthy!"
That's great if you do. I applaud you for it, change has to start somewhere and the best place to start is always in the home. But let me remind everyone that while we may believe we have gotten to where we are today on the brunt work of our individuality the harsh reality is quite different.

We rely on thousands of individuals behind the hidden 'vail' of society everyday. Buying groceries, investing in the stock market, using the internet, driving to work and even teaching our own children how to live.

We live in a national community. While there is a notion of being able to sink or swim by yourself the majority of us will sink or swim as a nation. So you may not be obese or suffer from type two diabetes  and you could be like me and love what your healthy eating has done for you as an individual. But in the long run the health issues of america are going to affect us all.

In the end, holistically, as a nation we are significantly immature when it comes to our eating and dietary habits. Over the next few weeks I want to engage what seem to me to be detrimental social psychological factors in America that have fueled our health issues including: 

• Simple Education
• The pursuit of Deadly Happiness
• Nutritional Debt
• Natural Addiction
• Being Wrong

The first step in knowing you have a problem is understanding what that problem is. We have to start addressing the health of our nation, even if it means one sugar bowl at a time.