$1.7 trillion. That is the annual economic burden of obesity and chronic metabolic disease in the United States. Not a policy abstraction. Not a number on a whiteboard. Real fatigue. Real diabetes. Real medical debt. Real lives. So why, despite decades of wellness culture, diet programs, and pharmaceutical intervention, does the curve keep climbing? Dr. Adam Brockman traces the Great Metabolic Divergence — from the 1980 pivot point that bent the obesity curve upward and never let it come back down, to the subsidy policies, engineered foods, and urban design choices that quietly built a system working against human biology. Then he puts America side by side with Japan — a nation with 4% obesity against America's 40% — and asks the question that changes everything: this isn't about willpower. So what is it actually about? And more importantly — what can you do about it? Your body is not broken. The blueprint is still there. This is where the restoration begins.
Special Guest: Dr. David Heitmann, Wellness Tech Expert
Special Guest: Dr. David Heitmann, Wellness Tech Expert
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
Welcome to the number one radio health talk show in America,
The Doctor Bob Martin Show. Doctor Martin is a chiropractic physician,
a Board certified clinical nutritionist, and diplomat of the American
Academy of Anti Aging Medicine.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
The information presented on this show is educational in nature.
Please consult your personal healthcare provider regarding health issues. You
may have got a health related problem or challenge, not
feeling well, and you just don't know where to turner
what to do. Doctor Bob Martin is here for you
and will do his very best to answer your health question.
The tone free number to ask Doctor Martin a health
(00:45):
question or to make a health related comment is eight
hundred six oh six eighty eight twenty two. Eight hundred
six oh six eighty eight twenty two. That's eight hundred
six zero six eighty eight twenty two.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
It's the Doctor Bob Martin and Show.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Welcome to the show. Everybody, you are tuned into Health
Talk America presents the Doctor Bob Martin Show streaming at
Healthtalkamerica dot com. And today I'm doctor Adam Brockman, and
I'm hosting the program and I'm speaking directly to you so,
whether you're catching us online or joining us later on
the podcast through our podcast library at doctor Bob dot com,
(01:25):
or you're listening on your local radio station. And I
want to give a shout out to our newest affiliate
in Janesville, Wisconsin, WCLO twelve thirty AM, ninety two point
seven FM. I want to say thank you for listening
and joining in the conversation. I'm glad you're here, everybody,
(01:45):
because this is one of those conversations that can change
the way you see your body, your family, your food,
your neighborhood, and frankly, your future. Today, I want to
walk you through what I call the Great Metabolic Divergence.
I want you to picture a graph on your mind,
and on one side, you've got a line that stays
(02:09):
relatively stable for years, and on the other you've got
a line that suddenly bends upward around nineteen eighty and
just keeps climbing. And that curve isn't just a statistic,
it's not just a public health information that's collecting dust
in some policy office. That line represents real people. I'm
(02:30):
talking about real fatigue, real diabetes, real heart disease, real
joint pain, real medical debt. And yet even in the
middle of all that, I want to start this conversation
with talking about empowering you, letting you know that your
body is not broken. Your body is still this biological masterpiece,
(02:53):
and the blueprint is still there, The physician within is
still there. The issue is that the environment around you
has changed faster than human biology can comfortably adapt. So
let's go ahead and start with the price tag, because
this number is a monster. I'm talking about one point
seven trillion. That is the estimated yearly economic burden tied
(03:17):
to obesity and related chronic diseases in the United States,
and that includes direct medical spending, loss productivity, disability, missed work, in,
premature death, and direct healthcare costs alone. The burden is
often estimated between one hundred and forty seven billion and
(03:38):
two hundred and ten billion annually, and on an individual level,
in adult living with OBC can cost the healthcare system
and average of almost three thousand dollars more per year
than a healthier peer. So when we talk about weight
in blood, sugar and insulin resistance, fatty liver, or cardiovascular risk,
(03:59):
we're not talking about vanity. We're talking about one of
the biggest economic drags in modern American life. It's a
trillion dollar weight that's hanging from the ankles of our
entire country. Now here's where the story gets really interesting,
because if this were simply about human weakness or laziness
(04:20):
or some collapse in character, we'd expect to see similar
patterns everywhere. But we don't. And that brings us to
one of the most revealing comparisons in the world of
metabolic health, and that is Japan versus the United States.
But before we get to that, here's your friendly reminder
(04:41):
to join in the conversation today through our hotline at
eight hundred six zero six eight eight two two, or
by dropping us your question our thoughts at doctor Bob
dot com. Again that's eight hundred six zero six eight
eight two two, or at doctor Bob dot com spelling
out the word doctrbob dot com. So let's go ahead
(05:04):
and talk about this. If if you want a living
example of the great metabolic diversience, look at Japan. Adult
obese in Japan sits at roughly four percent. In the
United States, that figure has climbed beyond forty percent. I'm
talking about a tenfold increase between Japan and the United States.
(05:25):
Now that's no small difference. That is a metabolic canyon. No,
I do not buy the lazy explanation that one country
just has more willpower than the other. I'm not interested
in shaming language, and I'm not interested in pretending your
metabolism is a moral referendum. Your body is always responding
(05:49):
to signals. It responds to light, in movement and sleep,
and stress, in your food, your social rhythm, your environl
mental chemistry, in just your daily design. And in Japan,
many of those signals still support the body's natural intelligence.
But in America, too, many of those signals work against us.
(06:14):
So in Japan, walking is often built into daily life.
In much of America, movement has to be scheduled or planned,
or dressed for or driven to and squeezed in. In Japan,
portions tend to be smaller. When we're talking about food,
in the food culture often preserves structure and ritual in
(06:37):
stopping before you've engulfed yourself in calories. And in the
United States, the average person consumes about two hundred more
calories per day, and that's often from highly processed foods
that are engineered to keep your appetite humming long after
your true nutritional needs have been met. In Japan, obesity
(06:59):
related economic costs are estimated at around fifty billion, roughly
one percent of the gross domestic product we're talking about
in the US, it's over a trillion, almost two trillion dollars.
In the US, the direct and indirect burden swells into
a vastly larger share of the national productivity in the
(07:20):
healthcare spinning. So when you look and you hear about
this graph that we're going to talk about with my
special guest today, don't think what's wrong with people. Ask
the better question, which is what happened to the environment
surrounding the human because that's where the real truth starts
to emerge. There's a moment on this graph that matters.
(07:43):
It's a pivot point, it's a fork in the road.
Around nineteen eighty, the obesee curve in the United States
begins to rise in a way that should make every physician, parent, policymaker,
and patient stop and stare at it. And you're asking
why nineteen eighty It wasn't because our gene suddenly changed.
(08:04):
It wasn't because millions of Americans woke up and collectively
decided to sabotage themselves. This was the beginning of a
major cultural and institutional shift, and we're talking about the
dietary guidelines for Americans that pushed the population towards a
lower fat, higher carbohydrate framework that in practice often translated
(08:26):
into more refined grains, refined sugars, and more processed healthy
products in less respect for food quality in metabolic individuality.
At the same time, high fructose corn syrup was moving
into the food supply. Packaged foods exploded, and convenience became keen.
(08:48):
A shelf life started out ranking cellular life. And this
is the moment when the graph becomes a warning sign
that great metabolic divergence wasn't born in a gym. It
was born in policy, in manufacturing, agriculture, in design. It
was born when industrial efficiencies stopped serving human physiology and
(09:09):
started overriding it. And that brings me to the institutional
side of the story, because if we're going to understand
why this happened, we have to be honest about the
architecture behind it. First, there's the subsidy policy. We started
subsidizing commodity crops like corn, soy, and wheat, which became
the backbone of ultra processed, calorie dense foods. Second, we
(09:34):
have the engineered foods. Modern food science has become remarkably
skilled at finding the so called bliss point. And then third,
there's the urban design. And this is the one that
gets overlooked. All the time. We built large parts of
the American landscape around the car and not the human body.
Sidewalks disappeared, destinations spread out, the drive through got easier
(09:59):
to go through, and daily movement became optional instead of automatic.
Now here's the part that I really want to drive home.
And that's what the graph is. Not destiny. You're not
a statistic You're not condemned by a zip code that
you live in. It's the pantry that you grew up
with in the misinformation you absorbed in the eighties and
the nineties. In the two thousands, you still have agency,
(10:22):
you still have that adapted intelligence, You still have that
physician within. And maybe we start with more strength and
more sleep and less ultra processed input, more sunlight, more rhythm,
more recovery, more intention. That's not deprivation, that is restoration.
So again, when we come back, I'm gonna have a
(10:43):
special guest join us to talk about this graph and
more on how we can build up your long term resilience.
I'm doctor Adam Brockman hosting the Doctor Bob Martin Show,
part of Health Talk America at Healthtalkamerica dot com. We'll
be right back doctor Adam Brockman here. You've heard us
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Speaker 4 (12:01):
Because happiness.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Give you feel like that's what you want.
Speaker 4 (12:13):
Because.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
You feel Welcome back to the Doctor Bob Martin Show, everyone,
Doctor Adam Brockman here, and today we're going to do
something a little different. I want to talk about a
graph that I've been steering at for the last forty
eight hours and and honestly I have some questions. So
if you look at the obesity curves of the last
(12:39):
sixty years, Japan is essentially a flatline. They're industrialized, they
have convenience foods, convenient markets, ultra processed foods, and they
have a high stress corporate culture. And yet their obesity
rate barely moves. And meanwhile, here in America, from about
(13:01):
thirteen percent in nineteen sixty as far as obc rate
goes to over forty percent today. And get this, we
did it while building a multi billion dollar so called
wellness industry. And also you know follow into that is
your health, food, your supplements. Basically we are spending more
(13:23):
to get sicker. So I want to bring back a
man who has helped us look upstream at structural forces
that are doing this to us. So join me today again,
is doctor David Heypman and doctor David. He's my go
to for wellness tech and he's become a regular on
the show with his health insights. So he's a longtime
(13:44):
friend of mine and a colleague of mine. So I
want to welcome doctor David Heypman back to the Doctor
Bob Martin Show. How are you today, Doctor David?
Speaker 4 (13:52):
Amazing? Thank you? It can be more excited to talk
about this.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
Yeah, so doctor David, so you made this graph. People
could could see this in plain sight. So let's start
with this japan anomaly. They have all the trappings of
modern life, like I mentioned the stress, the long hours,
and also the technology, but their obesity curve doesn't follow ours.
(14:18):
So what do you think is that single biggest variable
that basically we're getting lost here in America.
Speaker 4 (14:25):
Yeah, it's crazy. I mean we're on a spending rocket
ship here in America and Japan has flatlined both their
spending and their obesity, Like they don't spend hardly any
money on supplements or weight loss programs. And so to me,
like it just clicked in my head after watching a
YouTube video. I was like, I need to really like
chart this out for my own brain. And what ended
(14:47):
up happening was a whole cultural thought process that I
would have never really fully expected. It's it's been hinted
at in my whole career of treating patients. But Japan
has this aspect where it's grandmother wisdom, and we went
the other way, We went to corporate agriculture wisdom. And
there was a very clear split in the seventies, which
in the eighties, which I want to talk about, but
(15:10):
I think for the most part, America has a s
obsession with transaction. Food is fuel they've got, you know,
everything is about optimization, and macros in Japan is all
about like sitting around together and truly that grandmother wisdom
when it comes to their food. And so there's some
really key differences in their culture that really are the
(15:31):
foundation of what they do differently than what America does.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
Yeah, and I find this fascinating. We keep trying to
solve this problem and we we blame it on individual willpower,
But Japan proves that when the environment is designed for health,
the individual doesn't have to fight so hard for it.
So here we are it's like swimming upstream in this monsoon,
(15:58):
and here they have this very calm pond if you will.
So we're seeing this massive divergence which you mentioned starting
starting let's say, right around nineteen eighty was do you think,
doctor David, it was this a sudden shift in human
biology or did something in our agriculture in our economy
(16:18):
that the policies there essentially marinate the American public into
this metabolic trap.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
Well, I can guarantee we didn't suddenly genetically change from
a biological organism standpoint, It was one hundred percent of
policy change, because right if it was a biological change,
the Japanese would have changed as well. And so nineteen
seventy seven for me was the defining year. We changed
our food pyramid and a series of reasonable decisions got
(16:46):
made by reasonable people. Farmers wanted to sell more corn,
Politicians wanted cheaper food so that more people were not starving.
Scientists wanted longer shelf life. And so what ended up
happening in nineteen seventy seven the Agricultural Board started lobbying
for food pyramid that was significantly different, and we demonized fat,
(17:07):
We subsidized corn, We included high frucitose corn syrup and
preservatives into everything with the correct intent of trying to
do all of those objectives. No one was malicious in
that thought process, and it was an experiment on the
American public that we didn't know we were doing, which
was the unfortunate thing that as an experiment, you should
(17:29):
have a controlled end, and we didn't. We're still on
this rocket ship just going.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
And exactly and so here we are. You can't tell
me three hundred million people just lost the discipline right
at that same exact moment in history. So what you
say is we've changed the fuel source of the nation.
We're talking about the high fruitose corn syrup. We get
the subsidies for processed grains, and then we wonder why,
(17:59):
you know, our engine, our internal clock is starting to
take a little bit, a little bit harder. So here's
the topic that we need to discuss. In America's wellness
industry grew at that exact same rate as the obesity epidemic.
So do you think our health system has become economically
(18:20):
dependent on our continued metabolic dysfunction.
Speaker 4 (18:24):
Yeah. Absolutely, It's a big trap that we don't even
know where in. And the economy needs us to not
lose weight. The economy needs us to keep on the
same path because otherwise all of those industries would collapse,
and so we built a system around the problem, not
the solution. Japan has built their system around the solution
(18:46):
rather than the problem. And that little difference there is
everything from a policy all the way down to how
we think about food, how we move about our day,
and what we think the solutions actually need to be
versus what Japan thinks. Is they actually don't really even
think about it. They don't have to think about it.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Yeah, yeah, and that's just a it's part of their
daily life. So I want you to explain the graph
just a little bit more detail, so maybe for the
listeners they can actually visualize what exactly is taking place.
Speaker 4 (19:22):
Yeah. Pre nineteen eighty is essentially our obesity rate and
are spending on health and wellness products that's including weight
loss programs, supplements, all of those sorts of categories was
almost the same as Japan. And then suddenly in nineteen
eighty there's this huge inflection point up and since then
we raised up to about eighty billion in spending on
(19:45):
supplements and weight loss programs, and Japan is still sitting
around the same flatline of one billion to five billion
that they've always spent on their food and health and nutrition.
And so you see this chart, and it's actually almost
hard to look at the chart simply because America is
so far out of the norm compared to everyone else
(20:05):
that you have to like really zoom out on this chart,
and the lines for Japan almost just melt together and
go to the bottom of the graph where you can
barely see them, and then there's America with these big
blue lines just going up into the right, almost like
a economic chart that you want to see, but in
this case, we don't want to see that.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
Yeah, absolutely, And for folks at home that are listening,
you want to check out the chart, I encourage you.
We're going to post it on our website, which is
at at doctor Bob dot com. That's spelling out the
word doctor docto r bob dot com. There you can
see doctor David Heyman's his graph that he made talking
about our obesity epidemic and comparing it to Japan's, which
(20:48):
has essentially had the same curve for years, where ours
can continues to spike. Where we went from what I
mentioned earlier, the rate of obesity was somewhere around thirteen
percent in nineteen sixty and we're floating a well over
forty percent now and then that continues to climb. So
this is something that we need to to a forty.
Speaker 4 (21:09):
Percent and six out of ten people have a chronic disease.
Now whereas for I mean it all wraps together of
you know, healthcare spending didn't make the chart just simply
because I was trying to keep it real simple. But man,
that that is escalated way past that.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
Yeah. Yeah, and that's that's the next chart, Doctor David. Okay,
so we do have to take a quick break, and folks,
I want you to go ahead and stick around with us.
We got a lot more to discuss this hour with
talking about this obesity epidemic. I'm here with doctor David Hetman,
and folks, don't go anywhere. You're listening to the Doctor
(21:45):
Bob Martin Show. Are you waiting on a line?
Speaker 4 (22:03):
Next, Jake?
Speaker 3 (22:05):
Are you waiting for the perfect night?
Speaker 4 (22:08):
How are you waiting to the time is right? What
do you want to learn to deal with?
Speaker 3 (22:18):
Welcome back. You're listening to the Doctor Bob Martin Show.
I'm doctor Adam Brockman and doctor Bob and I were
all about helping you live smarter and thrive naturally and
also teaching you to become your own best doctor most
of the time. And if you've got questions about your health,
we encourage your participation in the in the show in
your Own Health, and you can reach us at our
toll free hotline which is eight hundred six zero six
(22:42):
eight eight two to two. Again, that's eight hundred six
zero six eight eight two to two. That's where you
find doctor Bob and I to licensed physicians, and we're
sending by to help you unlock your best self. Okay,
Today we're talking with doctor David Hetman about the American
obesity epidemic, and he came up with this great graph
to show exactly how we keep on climbing and yet
(23:05):
as comparison Japan, with all the modern conveniences, stay about
the same rate as they've been for the last forty
plus years. So this is ultimate irony. So we're talking
about that we have more access to health and so
called health care, but we're still sold on this fix
(23:27):
by the same corporate structures that profit from say everything
from the flu to these metabolic disorders which ultimately cause
a great deal of this obesity. So we need to
actually sell or solve true metabolic health, so doctor David.
In Japan, movement is just it's a byproduct of living.
(23:51):
It's built into a walk to the train station or
the commute, or to their local super or supermarket. In
the US, movement is basically it's a chore that we
schedule at the gym. So I want you to I
want you to let our listeners know, how does this
structural difference in movement change that long term metabolic set
(24:16):
point for most people?
Speaker 4 (24:19):
Yeah, this is really cool where thankfully the research has
actually shown this time and time again for the past
thirty years, forty five minutes in the gym does not
replace the twenty four hours of living right, And there's
a really cool concept called the NEAT program, and it's
groundbreaking research from Mayo and it really shows all about
(24:41):
how just regular movement through the day burns more calories
is better for your metabolism, better overall for your health
by just fidgeting and moving and chewing gum and taking
the stairs and all of these little things that add
up that Americans stopped doing just period. Japanese Cull sure
has you know, mobility things everywhere. You can see little
(25:03):
bars that people are rubbing themselves up against for self
massage and all sorts of cool cultural things that have
lasted through the industrialization. And so this is where they
don't think about exercise like Americans do and label it
as exercise. They just culturally move a little bit more.
They sit down into deeper squatting positions. Their beds are
(25:25):
low off the ground, so they have to get that
hip hinge going and all. As a result of all
of that, they just feel better. They have more energy.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
Yeah, and I think here we've made movement and extra
curricular activity rather than at requirement for life. And when
you have to buy a membership just to just use
your legs, that that system's already already broken. You know,
we can walk to our mailbox, We can do these
type of things and your body. It was designed to
(25:57):
be in motion and not a sedentary computer operator that
visits this the sweat box, you know, the gym for
thirty minutes a day, but.
Speaker 4 (26:06):
But oh it's really quick. There was There was a
fascinating other finding that I found when I was digging
into this is that elevator companies can't make it in
Japan because no one wants to take the elevator there,
and so it just random, you know, culturally they're that different.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
That yeah, yeah, I mean, you know, most of most
of us in America, the elevator is the first thing
we look for when we go into a building that's
more than two stories high, right, yep, So that is
that is that is pretty interesting. I find that very interesting.
So let's let's talk about the food itself. We were
we talk often about the show about these hyper palatable
(26:45):
engineered foods, and and I want to talk just briefly
how much of this is that lack of willpower and
how much of it is just our food system has
been scientifically hacked, so to speak, to bypass these natural
hunger signals that our body has and we just want
to keep eating eating.
Speaker 4 (27:05):
Yeah. The good news is that it's not our problem.
It's the science problem, and they've really figured out how
to hack our biology. Our willpower is actually pretty strong.
But at ten o'clock at night, the fifty billion dollar
industry of food science has really one in the hyperpalatability.
And I love this word as a difference between ultra
(27:27):
process versus hyperpalatability, because what the science is showing is
that we can eat up to three times as much
food before our body even recognizes that we're eating the food.
And that's where the science actually like they're doing their
job of making something tastes so good that we don't
even have the feedback system and the biology to recognize
(27:48):
that we're eating that food. It just tastes so good.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
Yeah, And a lot of times that's the you know,
we always he heard the joke kind of oh, you know,
eating a whole sleeve of oreos. Well that it's not
just that's not just something that that we're like, oh, yeah,
that's we're just that hungry. No, absolutely not. It's just
because we don't have that switch to turn it off
after we eat two or three or whatever it is.
(28:12):
And I'm not saying, you know that to avoid oreos altogether,
if you can, that's great, But it's also one of
those those things that you know, folks need to hear.
You're not failing failing your diet necessarily. Your diet is
designed to fail you. When these food scientists there, they're
paid to find that bliss point that overrides your your
(28:35):
brain's on full signal. That's that's not a snack that
becomes if you will doctor David a bio weapon, right.
Speaker 4 (28:42):
It is, Yes, it's infiltrated in. The science is so
narrow that they know when you want to chip that
four to seven crunches is exactly what your brain needs
for maximal you know, neurotransmitter processing of you wanting more, right,
because if it's more more than that, then you feel
like you're chewing on cardboard. If it's less than that,
(29:03):
you're not satisfied. And so they have all of these
metrics measured out deep studies to prove to overcome your biology.
And whereas Japan has a culture that is exact opposite,
where they eat slowly, they eat together, they have rituals
behind things. They don't even think about over eating simply
(29:25):
because they take their time and it allows that biology
to catch up with you know, you don't have to
feel bad about eating a few oreos because they're only
going to eat one or two of them simply because
everything that ate before the oreos told their biology that
they were full, and so they get satisfied with the
two oreos rather than eating the whole sleeve.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
Yeah, and this is something that you know, we need
to take a short break, but when we come back,
I want to talk about how Japan it's taught to
them at a very early age about just just food literacy,
and it's important conversation to have because it's something that
is completely ignored here in the United States. So listeners,
(30:07):
we need to take a quick break. But again, the
health conversation doesn't stop here. If you've got pressing questions
about your health, or you need wellness tips or anything
health related, Doctor Bob and I are just phone call
away at eight hundred six zero six eight A two two. Again,
that's eight hundred six zero six eight A two two.
And if you can't get enough of what we're talking
(30:28):
about today, I want you to dive into our entire
podcast library at doctor Bob dot com or Healthtalkamerica dot com.
There you'll find they'll find this episode, previous episodes, you
can replay your favorites or catch up on shows that
you've missed. That's all over at doctor Bob dot com.
All right, we got to take a short break, but
when we come back with doctor David Heyman, we're going
(30:50):
to get into Japan's school launch system. You're listening to
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Speaker 3 (33:07):
So welcome back, doctor Adam Brockman here, and you're tuned
into the Doctor Bob Martin Show, America's number one health
(33:28):
talk radio program. And as we're navigating today's conversation. I
want to remind you about our incredible listener resources, one
being our email health question form. If you've got a
question or a topic that you love us to explore,
all you gotta do is head over to doctor bob
dot com and to use our easy to use email
health question form. That's doctor Bob dot com spelling out
(33:48):
the word doctor d O C t O R bob
dot com. Today I'm talking with doctor David Heipman, and
we're talking about a graph that he created just to
basically show people the difference between our obesity curve over
the last forty years in Japan's and again we're talking
(34:11):
about two cultures that have a lot of the same
similarities as far as we have access to convenient foods,
we have access to the same type of healthcare options.
But the difference is it's the cultural significance of how
(34:31):
Japan eats happens right there in the classroom. So this
is what I want to talk about next, doctor David.
If we're looking at Japan's school launch systems, I find
a kind of legendary They teach this food literacy in
portion control from an early age, as early as five.
(34:53):
So I want to talk about how much of this
obesity curve in this graph is being baked in during
childhood via sometimes our current school lunch programs.
Speaker 4 (35:06):
Yeah, I mean, I've got a great story on this
one that when my kids were younger, before we actually
started homeschooling, we went and we got the privilege to
go to the lunch room with our kids, and as
I was walking down the food line, they definitely had
a pride in themselves of that they were the advanced
food of Wisconsin for school lunch. And they literally had
(35:27):
a tray of raw broccoli florettes sitting there, some old apples,
some pruney apples, and some black bananas is sitting in
a tray next to the French fries, the tater tots,
and the pizza. Of course, so did the kids choose that,
Absolutely not. It was a very eye opening experience for
me that these people were very proud of their lunch
program and incorporating all of the healthy stuff. Right. But
(35:51):
in Japan, as a stark contrast, the kids are actually
involved in the processing of the food for their school lunch.
They actually are required to serve their peers, so it's
actually the children themselves leading the charge and learning how
to actually properly prep their food that actually sit down
with their teachers. It's a community there where is stark
(36:13):
difference of you know, industrialized food and big trays here
in America, where the kids have no idea where it
comes from. It's just some sort of magical pan that
sits in front of them, and there's no opportunity for
them to get involved and even see where their food comes.
They just can massively shovel it onto their plate kind
of thing.
Speaker 3 (36:32):
Yeah, we're basically we're feeding our children the very things
that guarantee that lifetime of chronic illness, which again we
mentioned it was you know, six out ten sixty percent
of Americans deal with some type of a chronic illness
or disease. And so so we're doing this in the
(36:52):
name of convenience and also cost cutting. So we're sitting here,
we're mortgaging in our children's health for a cheaper bottom line.
And that starts obviously in the school, in a school cafeteria.
But beyond the calories, what about this invisible stuff? What
roles do you see that the indocrine disruptors and the
(37:15):
environmental toxins play in this divergence. Is our environment being
programmed for our cells to just store fat?
Speaker 4 (37:24):
Yeah, I mean that's exactly it. Our environment programs ourselves.
You said it perfectly. Where the other thing that we
can't measure is the chemical effect of things. It's easy
to measure steps, it's easy to measure calories. We change
those things and we try to improve it outcomes. But
if there's a BPA and it is an estrogen disruptor,
(37:46):
and you know, thirty years after that children that child
is you know, fed from a plastic bottle formula, that's
really hard to measure. And so all of these ingredients
that have been going into our food system for forty years,
we're just now starting to think, oh, maybe that there's
something wrong with them. And so it's one of the
least talked about things and nutrition. What kind of farming
(38:09):
residue do we have on our ingredients? Is the glyphosphate
sticking to things? Is there plastics that are integrating in
when you makerowave that thing? Is that soaking in all
of those chemicals into your food? And the answer is yes,
we just don't know fully what the effects are. We
just know it is affecting us clearly, because that's what
the graph shows.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
And and this is this is that invisible hand of
the epidemic that we're talking about. If your if your
hormones are being hijacked by the chemicals in your water,
the plastic microplastics and uh and also in your foods,
you can't count calories. Uh, you know, and just look
at it like you're blue in the face and your
(38:50):
body's still holding onto that weight. It's it's the signaling
error as well. And so we're talking about calories and
these these disruptors that are out there. So, doctor Dave,
we just got about a minute or so before break.
But if the American environment is rigged against us, how
can we individually reclaim our health? What do you think
(39:15):
or some structural changes a person can make today to
mimic that Japanese metabolic resilience that they have.
Speaker 4 (39:22):
Well, if we're just talking to the school lunch thing,
make make lunch for your kids, Take the time to
get them involved in the process. Start early, start them young,
Start to teach them how to wield a knife and
cut their food and get them going. So it's as
simple as that.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
That's a a good place to start. So again, we're
talking with doctor David Heipman about a graph that he
made that shows the obesity epidemic in the United States,
and I want to I want to discuss that just
a little bit further when we come back from break.
You're listening to the Doctor Bob Martin show. Don't Go Anywhere. Hi,
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Speaker 3 (41:16):
God Gold, welcome back. You're listening to the Doctor Bob
Martin Show. I'm doctor Adam Brockman and we've hit our
home stretch with doctor David Heipman. And uh, doctor David again,
thanks for being a voice of reason and also creating
this great graph that that shows, uh, basically are what
what we need to take a look at and change
(41:38):
as far as this epidemic, this OBC epidemic in the
United States. So doctor David, I want you to want
you to explain one last time so everybody listening can
can visualize this graph, what exactly the best way to
to to move forward with this information that you've created
and what what exactly is that information?
Speaker 4 (41:59):
Yeah, so the information is really simple. It started with
this lifelong career in health and wellness and working on patients.
But that realization of, wow, we buy a lot in America,
and we buy a lot of weight loss stuff, and
we buy a lot of supplements, and we buy a
lot of stuff to try to get healthy. And when
I looked at Japan and their obesity rate was basically flat,
(42:21):
their spending was basically flat, almost non existent. And then
you look at America starting in nineteen eighty, so rocket
ship going up, and suddenly we're spending eighty billion dollars
and probably even more than that if you start counting
in healthcare, and our obesity went all the way up
to forty one forty two percent, and our chronic diseases
are now six out of ten people. What the heck happened?
(42:44):
And it just makes you sit there and realize in
almost a dumbfounded way, because we know Japan has McDonald's,
Japan has vending machines everywhere, They even have a term
where they like to work themselves to death, and so
they have the high stress environment that America has, and
what the heck is going on? And it really just
comes down to when I was doing the research on this,
(43:06):
it is a fundamental cultural difference of the way that
they approach their life. They use all sorts of terms.
If you look back in their history, Eka guy, which
is not about being your workforce. It's actually about finding
peace in the things that you're doing. They believe in craftsmanship,
they believe in slow processes, they believe in community. The
(43:27):
Okinawans believe that you should only get to eighty percent full.
There's all these things that they do differently than American
culture does. And when you start to dive into that,
it's really easy to see as Americans what we can
start to do and that there's actually a lot of
hope that we don't have to give into this. We
can start making immediate changes.
Speaker 3 (43:49):
I agree with you, and again thanks thanks so much
for joining me again, doctor David Hetman, and I hope
you join us again soon because it said maybe you
can make it new graph for us since But you know, folks,
here's the takeaway. Your body. You've heard me say it.
Your body is a biological masterpiece. It was designed for vitality,
(44:11):
and it was designed for energy. It was designed ultimately
for resilience. So if you're struggling with your weight or
your health, start looking at the environment that you're swimming in,
and a divergence between the US and Japan shows us
that health isn't just about personal choices, it's about structural
ones as well. But until our policies catch up to
(44:34):
the science, the responsibility follows on us to build our
own environments, our own micro environments. If you will, I'm
doctor Adam Brockman. I want you to take charge of
your health, because that's your birthright. We'll see you next
hour on health Talk America presents The Doctor Bob Martin Show.
Welcome to the number one radio health talk show in America,
The Doctor Bob Martin Show. Doctor Martin is a chiropractic physician,
a Board certified clinical nutritionist, and diplomat of the American
Academy of Anti Aging Medicine.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
The information presented on this show is educational in nature.
Please consult your personal healthcare provider regarding health issues. You
may have got a health related problem or challenge, not
feeling well, and you just don't know where to turner
what to do. Doctor Bob Martin is here for you
and will do his very best to answer your health question.
The tone free number to ask Doctor Martin a health
(00:45):
question or to make a health related comment is eight
hundred six oh six eighty eight twenty two. Eight hundred
six oh six eighty eight twenty two. That's eight hundred
six zero six eighty eight twenty two.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
It's the Doctor Bob Martin and Show.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Welcome to the show. Everybody, you are tuned into Health
Talk America presents the Doctor Bob Martin Show streaming at
Healthtalkamerica dot com. And today I'm doctor Adam Brockman, and
I'm hosting the program and I'm speaking directly to you so,
whether you're catching us online or joining us later on
the podcast through our podcast library at doctor Bob dot com,
(01:25):
or you're listening on your local radio station. And I
want to give a shout out to our newest affiliate
in Janesville, Wisconsin, WCLO twelve thirty AM, ninety two point
seven FM. I want to say thank you for listening
and joining in the conversation. I'm glad you're here, everybody,
(01:45):
because this is one of those conversations that can change
the way you see your body, your family, your food,
your neighborhood, and frankly, your future. Today, I want to
walk you through what I call the Great Metabolic Divergence.
I want you to picture a graph on your mind,
and on one side, you've got a line that stays
(02:09):
relatively stable for years, and on the other you've got
a line that suddenly bends upward around nineteen eighty and
just keeps climbing. And that curve isn't just a statistic,
it's not just a public health information that's collecting dust
in some policy office. That line represents real people. I'm
(02:30):
talking about real fatigue, real diabetes, real heart disease, real
joint pain, real medical debt. And yet even in the
middle of all that, I want to start this conversation
with talking about empowering you, letting you know that your
body is not broken. Your body is still this biological masterpiece,
(02:53):
and the blueprint is still there, The physician within is
still there. The issue is that the environment around you
has changed faster than human biology can comfortably adapt. So
let's go ahead and start with the price tag, because
this number is a monster. I'm talking about one point
seven trillion. That is the estimated yearly economic burden tied
(03:17):
to obesity and related chronic diseases in the United States,
and that includes direct medical spending, loss productivity, disability, missed work, in,
premature death, and direct healthcare costs alone. The burden is
often estimated between one hundred and forty seven billion and
(03:38):
two hundred and ten billion annually, and on an individual level,
in adult living with OBC can cost the healthcare system
and average of almost three thousand dollars more per year
than a healthier peer. So when we talk about weight
in blood, sugar and insulin resistance, fatty liver, or cardiovascular risk,
(03:59):
we're not talking about vanity. We're talking about one of
the biggest economic drags in modern American life. It's a
trillion dollar weight that's hanging from the ankles of our
entire country. Now here's where the story gets really interesting,
because if this were simply about human weakness or laziness
(04:20):
or some collapse in character, we'd expect to see similar
patterns everywhere. But we don't. And that brings us to
one of the most revealing comparisons in the world of
metabolic health, and that is Japan versus the United States.
But before we get to that, here's your friendly reminder
(04:41):
to join in the conversation today through our hotline at
eight hundred six zero six eight eight two two, or
by dropping us your question our thoughts at doctor Bob
dot com. Again that's eight hundred six zero six eight
eight two two, or at doctor Bob dot com spelling
out the word doctrbob dot com. So let's go ahead
(05:04):
and talk about this. If if you want a living
example of the great metabolic diversience, look at Japan. Adult
obese in Japan sits at roughly four percent. In the
United States, that figure has climbed beyond forty percent. I'm
talking about a tenfold increase between Japan and the United States.
(05:25):
Now that's no small difference. That is a metabolic canyon. No,
I do not buy the lazy explanation that one country
just has more willpower than the other. I'm not interested
in shaming language, and I'm not interested in pretending your
metabolism is a moral referendum. Your body is always responding
(05:49):
to signals. It responds to light, in movement and sleep,
and stress, in your food, your social rhythm, your environl
mental chemistry, in just your daily design. And in Japan,
many of those signals still support the body's natural intelligence.
But in America, too, many of those signals work against us.
(06:14):
So in Japan, walking is often built into daily life.
In much of America, movement has to be scheduled or planned,
or dressed for or driven to and squeezed in. In Japan,
portions tend to be smaller. When we're talking about food,
in the food culture often preserves structure and ritual in
(06:37):
stopping before you've engulfed yourself in calories. And in the
United States, the average person consumes about two hundred more
calories per day, and that's often from highly processed foods
that are engineered to keep your appetite humming long after
your true nutritional needs have been met. In Japan, obesity
(06:59):
related economic costs are estimated at around fifty billion, roughly
one percent of the gross domestic product we're talking about
in the US, it's over a trillion, almost two trillion dollars.
In the US, the direct and indirect burden swells into
a vastly larger share of the national productivity in the
(07:20):
healthcare spinning. So when you look and you hear about
this graph that we're going to talk about with my
special guest today, don't think what's wrong with people. Ask
the better question, which is what happened to the environment
surrounding the human because that's where the real truth starts
to emerge. There's a moment on this graph that matters.
(07:43):
It's a pivot point, it's a fork in the road.
Around nineteen eighty, the obesee curve in the United States
begins to rise in a way that should make every physician, parent, policymaker,
and patient stop and stare at it. And you're asking
why nineteen eighty It wasn't because our gene suddenly changed.
(08:04):
It wasn't because millions of Americans woke up and collectively
decided to sabotage themselves. This was the beginning of a
major cultural and institutional shift, and we're talking about the
dietary guidelines for Americans that pushed the population towards a
lower fat, higher carbohydrate framework that in practice often translated
(08:26):
into more refined grains, refined sugars, and more processed healthy
products in less respect for food quality in metabolic individuality.
At the same time, high fructose corn syrup was moving
into the food supply. Packaged foods exploded, and convenience became keen.
(08:48):
A shelf life started out ranking cellular life. And this
is the moment when the graph becomes a warning sign
that great metabolic divergence wasn't born in a gym. It
was born in policy, in manufacturing, agriculture, in design. It
was born when industrial efficiencies stopped serving human physiology and
(09:09):
started overriding it. And that brings me to the institutional
side of the story, because if we're going to understand
why this happened, we have to be honest about the
architecture behind it. First, there's the subsidy policy. We started
subsidizing commodity crops like corn, soy, and wheat, which became
the backbone of ultra processed, calorie dense foods. Second, we
(09:34):
have the engineered foods. Modern food science has become remarkably
skilled at finding the so called bliss point. And then third,
there's the urban design. And this is the one that
gets overlooked. All the time. We built large parts of
the American landscape around the car and not the human body.
Sidewalks disappeared, destinations spread out, the drive through got easier
(09:59):
to go through, and daily movement became optional instead of automatic.
Now here's the part that I really want to drive home.
And that's what the graph is. Not destiny. You're not
a statistic You're not condemned by a zip code that
you live in. It's the pantry that you grew up
with in the misinformation you absorbed in the eighties and
the nineties. In the two thousands, you still have agency,
(10:22):
you still have that adapted intelligence, You still have that
physician within. And maybe we start with more strength and
more sleep and less ultra processed input, more sunlight, more rhythm,
more recovery, more intention. That's not deprivation, that is restoration.
So again, when we come back, I'm gonna have a
(10:43):
special guest join us to talk about this graph and
more on how we can build up your long term resilience.
I'm doctor Adam Brockman hosting the Doctor Bob Martin Show,
part of Health Talk America at Healthtalkamerica dot com. We'll
be right back doctor Adam Brockman here. You've heard us
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Speaker 4 (12:01):
Because happiness.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Give you feel like that's what you want.
Speaker 4 (12:13):
Because.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
You feel Welcome back to the Doctor Bob Martin Show, everyone,
Doctor Adam Brockman here, and today we're going to do
something a little different. I want to talk about a
graph that I've been steering at for the last forty
eight hours and and honestly I have some questions. So
if you look at the obesity curves of the last
(12:39):
sixty years, Japan is essentially a flatline. They're industrialized, they
have convenience foods, convenient markets, ultra processed foods, and they
have a high stress corporate culture. And yet their obesity
rate barely moves. And meanwhile, here in America, from about
(13:01):
thirteen percent in nineteen sixty as far as obc rate
goes to over forty percent today. And get this, we
did it while building a multi billion dollar so called
wellness industry. And also you know follow into that is
your health, food, your supplements. Basically we are spending more
(13:23):
to get sicker. So I want to bring back a
man who has helped us look upstream at structural forces
that are doing this to us. So join me today again,
is doctor David Heypman and doctor David. He's my go
to for wellness tech and he's become a regular on
the show with his health insights. So he's a longtime
(13:44):
friend of mine and a colleague of mine. So I
want to welcome doctor David Heypman back to the Doctor
Bob Martin Show. How are you today, Doctor David?
Speaker 4 (13:52):
Amazing? Thank you? It can be more excited to talk
about this.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
Yeah, so doctor David, so you made this graph. People
could could see this in plain sight. So let's start
with this japan anomaly. They have all the trappings of
modern life, like I mentioned the stress, the long hours,
and also the technology, but their obesity curve doesn't follow ours.
(14:18):
So what do you think is that single biggest variable
that basically we're getting lost here in America.
Speaker 4 (14:25):
Yeah, it's crazy. I mean we're on a spending rocket
ship here in America and Japan has flatlined both their
spending and their obesity, Like they don't spend hardly any
money on supplements or weight loss programs. And so to me,
like it just clicked in my head after watching a
YouTube video. I was like, I need to really like
chart this out for my own brain. And what ended
(14:47):
up happening was a whole cultural thought process that I
would have never really fully expected. It's it's been hinted
at in my whole career of treating patients. But Japan
has this aspect where it's grandmother wisdom, and we went
the other way, We went to corporate agriculture wisdom. And
there was a very clear split in the seventies, which
in the eighties, which I want to talk about, but
(15:10):
I think for the most part, America has a s
obsession with transaction. Food is fuel they've got, you know,
everything is about optimization, and macros in Japan is all
about like sitting around together and truly that grandmother wisdom
when it comes to their food. And so there's some
really key differences in their culture that really are the
(15:31):
foundation of what they do differently than what America does.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
Yeah, and I find this fascinating. We keep trying to
solve this problem and we we blame it on individual willpower,
But Japan proves that when the environment is designed for health,
the individual doesn't have to fight so hard for it.
So here we are it's like swimming upstream in this monsoon,
(15:58):
and here they have this very calm pond if you will.
So we're seeing this massive divergence which you mentioned starting
starting let's say, right around nineteen eighty was do you think,
doctor David, it was this a sudden shift in human
biology or did something in our agriculture in our economy
(16:18):
that the policies there essentially marinate the American public into
this metabolic trap.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
Well, I can guarantee we didn't suddenly genetically change from
a biological organism standpoint, It was one hundred percent of
policy change, because right if it was a biological change,
the Japanese would have changed as well. And so nineteen
seventy seven for me was the defining year. We changed
our food pyramid and a series of reasonable decisions got
(16:46):
made by reasonable people. Farmers wanted to sell more corn,
Politicians wanted cheaper food so that more people were not starving.
Scientists wanted longer shelf life. And so what ended up
happening in nineteen seventy seven the Agricultural Board started lobbying
for food pyramid that was significantly different, and we demonized fat,
(17:07):
We subsidized corn, We included high frucitose corn syrup and
preservatives into everything with the correct intent of trying to
do all of those objectives. No one was malicious in
that thought process, and it was an experiment on the
American public that we didn't know we were doing, which
was the unfortunate thing that as an experiment, you should
(17:29):
have a controlled end, and we didn't. We're still on
this rocket ship just going.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
And exactly and so here we are. You can't tell
me three hundred million people just lost the discipline right
at that same exact moment in history. So what you
say is we've changed the fuel source of the nation.
We're talking about the high fruitose corn syrup. We get
the subsidies for processed grains, and then we wonder why,
(17:59):
you know, our engine, our internal clock is starting to
take a little bit, a little bit harder. So here's
the topic that we need to discuss. In America's wellness
industry grew at that exact same rate as the obesity epidemic.
So do you think our health system has become economically
(18:20):
dependent on our continued metabolic dysfunction.
Speaker 4 (18:24):
Yeah. Absolutely, It's a big trap that we don't even
know where in. And the economy needs us to not
lose weight. The economy needs us to keep on the
same path because otherwise all of those industries would collapse,
and so we built a system around the problem, not
the solution. Japan has built their system around the solution
(18:46):
rather than the problem. And that little difference there is
everything from a policy all the way down to how
we think about food, how we move about our day,
and what we think the solutions actually need to be
versus what Japan thinks. Is they actually don't really even
think about it. They don't have to think about it.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Yeah, yeah, and that's just a it's part of their
daily life. So I want you to explain the graph
just a little bit more detail, so maybe for the
listeners they can actually visualize what exactly is taking place.
Speaker 4 (19:22):
Yeah. Pre nineteen eighty is essentially our obesity rate and
are spending on health and wellness products that's including weight
loss programs, supplements, all of those sorts of categories was
almost the same as Japan. And then suddenly in nineteen
eighty there's this huge inflection point up and since then
we raised up to about eighty billion in spending on
(19:45):
supplements and weight loss programs, and Japan is still sitting
around the same flatline of one billion to five billion
that they've always spent on their food and health and nutrition.
And so you see this chart, and it's actually almost
hard to look at the chart simply because America is
so far out of the norm compared to everyone else
(20:05):
that you have to like really zoom out on this chart,
and the lines for Japan almost just melt together and
go to the bottom of the graph where you can
barely see them, and then there's America with these big
blue lines just going up into the right, almost like
a economic chart that you want to see, but in
this case, we don't want to see that.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
Yeah, absolutely, And for folks at home that are listening,
you want to check out the chart, I encourage you.
We're going to post it on our website, which is
at at doctor Bob dot com. That's spelling out the
word doctor docto r bob dot com. There you can
see doctor David Heyman's his graph that he made talking
about our obesity epidemic and comparing it to Japan's, which
(20:48):
has essentially had the same curve for years, where ours
can continues to spike. Where we went from what I
mentioned earlier, the rate of obesity was somewhere around thirteen
percent in nineteen sixty and we're floating a well over
forty percent now and then that continues to climb. So
this is something that we need to to a forty.
Speaker 4 (21:09):
Percent and six out of ten people have a chronic disease.
Now whereas for I mean it all wraps together of
you know, healthcare spending didn't make the chart just simply
because I was trying to keep it real simple. But man,
that that is escalated way past that.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
Yeah. Yeah, and that's that's the next chart, Doctor David. Okay,
so we do have to take a quick break, and folks,
I want you to go ahead and stick around with us.
We got a lot more to discuss this hour with
talking about this obesity epidemic. I'm here with doctor David Hetman,
and folks, don't go anywhere. You're listening to the Doctor
(21:45):
Bob Martin Show. Are you waiting on a line?
Speaker 4 (22:03):
Next, Jake?
Speaker 3 (22:05):
Are you waiting for the perfect night?
Speaker 4 (22:08):
How are you waiting to the time is right? What
do you want to learn to deal with?
Speaker 3 (22:18):
Welcome back. You're listening to the Doctor Bob Martin Show.
I'm doctor Adam Brockman and doctor Bob and I were
all about helping you live smarter and thrive naturally and
also teaching you to become your own best doctor most
of the time. And if you've got questions about your health,
we encourage your participation in the in the show in
your Own Health, and you can reach us at our
toll free hotline which is eight hundred six zero six
(22:42):
eight eight two to two. Again, that's eight hundred six
zero six eight eight two to two. That's where you
find doctor Bob and I to licensed physicians, and we're
sending by to help you unlock your best self. Okay,
Today we're talking with doctor David Hetman about the American
obesity epidemic, and he came up with this great graph
to show exactly how we keep on climbing and yet
(23:05):
as comparison Japan, with all the modern conveniences, stay about
the same rate as they've been for the last forty
plus years. So this is ultimate irony. So we're talking
about that we have more access to health and so
called health care, but we're still sold on this fix
(23:27):
by the same corporate structures that profit from say everything
from the flu to these metabolic disorders which ultimately cause
a great deal of this obesity. So we need to
actually sell or solve true metabolic health, so doctor David.
In Japan, movement is just it's a byproduct of living.
(23:51):
It's built into a walk to the train station or
the commute, or to their local super or supermarket. In
the US, movement is basically it's a chore that we
schedule at the gym. So I want you to I
want you to let our listeners know, how does this
structural difference in movement change that long term metabolic set
(24:16):
point for most people?
Speaker 4 (24:19):
Yeah, this is really cool where thankfully the research has
actually shown this time and time again for the past
thirty years, forty five minutes in the gym does not
replace the twenty four hours of living right, And there's
a really cool concept called the NEAT program, and it's
groundbreaking research from Mayo and it really shows all about
(24:41):
how just regular movement through the day burns more calories
is better for your metabolism, better overall for your health
by just fidgeting and moving and chewing gum and taking
the stairs and all of these little things that add
up that Americans stopped doing just period. Japanese Cull sure
has you know, mobility things everywhere. You can see little
(25:03):
bars that people are rubbing themselves up against for self
massage and all sorts of cool cultural things that have
lasted through the industrialization. And so this is where they
don't think about exercise like Americans do and label it
as exercise. They just culturally move a little bit more.
They sit down into deeper squatting positions. Their beds are
(25:25):
low off the ground, so they have to get that
hip hinge going and all. As a result of all
of that, they just feel better. They have more energy.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
Yeah, and I think here we've made movement and extra
curricular activity rather than at requirement for life. And when
you have to buy a membership just to just use
your legs, that that system's already already broken. You know,
we can walk to our mailbox, We can do these
type of things and your body. It was designed to
(25:57):
be in motion and not a sedentary computer operator that
visits this the sweat box, you know, the gym for
thirty minutes a day, but.
Speaker 4 (26:06):
But oh it's really quick. There was There was a
fascinating other finding that I found when I was digging
into this is that elevator companies can't make it in
Japan because no one wants to take the elevator there,
and so it just random, you know, culturally they're that different.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
That yeah, yeah, I mean, you know, most of most
of us in America, the elevator is the first thing
we look for when we go into a building that's
more than two stories high, right, yep, So that is
that is that is pretty interesting. I find that very interesting.
So let's let's talk about the food itself. We were
we talk often about the show about these hyper palatable
(26:45):
engineered foods, and and I want to talk just briefly
how much of this is that lack of willpower and
how much of it is just our food system has
been scientifically hacked, so to speak, to bypass these natural
hunger signals that our body has and we just want
to keep eating eating.
Speaker 4 (27:05):
Yeah. The good news is that it's not our problem.
It's the science problem, and they've really figured out how
to hack our biology. Our willpower is actually pretty strong.
But at ten o'clock at night, the fifty billion dollar
industry of food science has really one in the hyperpalatability.
And I love this word as a difference between ultra
(27:27):
process versus hyperpalatability, because what the science is showing is
that we can eat up to three times as much
food before our body even recognizes that we're eating the food.
And that's where the science actually like they're doing their
job of making something tastes so good that we don't
even have the feedback system and the biology to recognize
(27:48):
that we're eating that food. It just tastes so good.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
Yeah, And a lot of times that's the you know,
we always he heard the joke kind of oh, you know,
eating a whole sleeve of oreos. Well that it's not
just that's not just something that that we're like, oh, yeah,
that's we're just that hungry. No, absolutely not. It's just
because we don't have that switch to turn it off
after we eat two or three or whatever it is.
(28:12):
And I'm not saying, you know that to avoid oreos altogether,
if you can, that's great, But it's also one of
those those things that you know, folks need to hear.
You're not failing failing your diet necessarily. Your diet is
designed to fail you. When these food scientists there, they're
paid to find that bliss point that overrides your your
(28:35):
brain's on full signal. That's that's not a snack that
becomes if you will doctor David a bio weapon, right.
Speaker 4 (28:42):
It is, Yes, it's infiltrated in. The science is so
narrow that they know when you want to chip that
four to seven crunches is exactly what your brain needs
for maximal you know, neurotransmitter processing of you wanting more, right,
because if it's more more than that, then you feel
like you're chewing on cardboard. If it's less than that,
(29:03):
you're not satisfied. And so they have all of these
metrics measured out deep studies to prove to overcome your biology.
And whereas Japan has a culture that is exact opposite,
where they eat slowly, they eat together, they have rituals
behind things. They don't even think about over eating simply
(29:25):
because they take their time and it allows that biology
to catch up with you know, you don't have to
feel bad about eating a few oreos because they're only
going to eat one or two of them simply because
everything that ate before the oreos told their biology that
they were full, and so they get satisfied with the
two oreos rather than eating the whole sleeve.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
Yeah, and this is something that you know, we need
to take a short break, but when we come back,
I want to talk about how Japan it's taught to
them at a very early age about just just food literacy,
and it's important conversation to have because it's something that
is completely ignored here in the United States. So listeners,
(30:07):
we need to take a quick break. But again, the
health conversation doesn't stop here. If you've got pressing questions
about your health, or you need wellness tips or anything
health related, Doctor Bob and I are just phone call
away at eight hundred six zero six eight A two two. Again,
that's eight hundred six zero six eight A two two.
And if you can't get enough of what we're talking
(30:28):
about today, I want you to dive into our entire
podcast library at doctor Bob dot com or Healthtalkamerica dot com.
There you'll find they'll find this episode, previous episodes, you
can replay your favorites or catch up on shows that
you've missed. That's all over at doctor Bob dot com.
All right, we got to take a short break, but
when we come back with doctor David Heyman, we're going
(30:50):
to get into Japan's school launch system. You're listening to
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Speaker 3 (33:07):
So welcome back, doctor Adam Brockman here, and you're tuned
into the Doctor Bob Martin Show, America's number one health
(33:28):
talk radio program. And as we're navigating today's conversation. I
want to remind you about our incredible listener resources, one
being our email health question form. If you've got a
question or a topic that you love us to explore,
all you gotta do is head over to doctor bob
dot com and to use our easy to use email
health question form. That's doctor Bob dot com spelling out
(33:48):
the word doctor d O C t O R bob
dot com. Today I'm talking with doctor David Heipman, and
we're talking about a graph that he created just to
basically show people the difference between our obesity curve over
the last forty years in Japan's and again we're talking
(34:11):
about two cultures that have a lot of the same
similarities as far as we have access to convenient foods,
we have access to the same type of healthcare options.
But the difference is it's the cultural significance of how
(34:31):
Japan eats happens right there in the classroom. So this
is what I want to talk about next, doctor David.
If we're looking at Japan's school launch systems, I find
a kind of legendary They teach this food literacy in
portion control from an early age, as early as five.
(34:53):
So I want to talk about how much of this
obesity curve in this graph is being baked in during
childhood via sometimes our current school lunch programs.
Speaker 4 (35:06):
Yeah, I mean, I've got a great story on this
one that when my kids were younger, before we actually
started homeschooling, we went and we got the privilege to
go to the lunch room with our kids, and as
I was walking down the food line, they definitely had
a pride in themselves of that they were the advanced
food of Wisconsin for school lunch. And they literally had
(35:27):
a tray of raw broccoli florettes sitting there, some old apples,
some pruney apples, and some black bananas is sitting in
a tray next to the French fries, the tater tots,
and the pizza. Of course, so did the kids choose that,
Absolutely not. It was a very eye opening experience for
me that these people were very proud of their lunch
program and incorporating all of the healthy stuff. Right. But
(35:51):
in Japan, as a stark contrast, the kids are actually
involved in the processing of the food for their school lunch.
They actually are required to serve their peers, so it's
actually the children themselves leading the charge and learning how
to actually properly prep their food that actually sit down
with their teachers. It's a community there where is stark
(36:13):
difference of you know, industrialized food and big trays here
in America, where the kids have no idea where it
comes from. It's just some sort of magical pan that
sits in front of them, and there's no opportunity for
them to get involved and even see where their food comes.
They just can massively shovel it onto their plate kind
of thing.
Speaker 3 (36:32):
Yeah, we're basically we're feeding our children the very things
that guarantee that lifetime of chronic illness, which again we
mentioned it was you know, six out ten sixty percent
of Americans deal with some type of a chronic illness
or disease. And so so we're doing this in the
(36:52):
name of convenience and also cost cutting. So we're sitting here,
we're mortgaging in our children's health for a cheaper bottom line.
And that starts obviously in the school, in a school cafeteria.
But beyond the calories, what about this invisible stuff? What
roles do you see that the indocrine disruptors and the
(37:15):
environmental toxins play in this divergence. Is our environment being
programmed for our cells to just store fat?
Speaker 4 (37:24):
Yeah, I mean that's exactly it. Our environment programs ourselves.
You said it perfectly. Where the other thing that we
can't measure is the chemical effect of things. It's easy
to measure steps, it's easy to measure calories. We change
those things and we try to improve it outcomes. But
if there's a BPA and it is an estrogen disruptor,
(37:46):
and you know, thirty years after that children that child
is you know, fed from a plastic bottle formula, that's
really hard to measure. And so all of these ingredients
that have been going into our food system for forty years,
we're just now starting to think, oh, maybe that there's
something wrong with them. And so it's one of the
least talked about things and nutrition. What kind of farming
(38:09):
residue do we have on our ingredients? Is the glyphosphate
sticking to things? Is there plastics that are integrating in
when you makerowave that thing? Is that soaking in all
of those chemicals into your food? And the answer is yes,
we just don't know fully what the effects are. We
just know it is affecting us clearly, because that's what
the graph shows.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
And and this is this is that invisible hand of
the epidemic that we're talking about. If your if your
hormones are being hijacked by the chemicals in your water,
the plastic microplastics and uh and also in your foods,
you can't count calories. Uh, you know, and just look
at it like you're blue in the face and your
(38:50):
body's still holding onto that weight. It's it's the signaling
error as well. And so we're talking about calories and
these these disruptors that are out there. So, doctor Dave,
we just got about a minute or so before break.
But if the American environment is rigged against us, how
can we individually reclaim our health? What do you think
(39:15):
or some structural changes a person can make today to
mimic that Japanese metabolic resilience that they have.
Speaker 4 (39:22):
Well, if we're just talking to the school lunch thing,
make make lunch for your kids, Take the time to
get them involved in the process. Start early, start them young,
Start to teach them how to wield a knife and
cut their food and get them going. So it's as
simple as that.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
That's a a good place to start. So again, we're
talking with doctor David Heipman about a graph that he
made that shows the obesity epidemic in the United States,
and I want to I want to discuss that just
a little bit further when we come back from break.
You're listening to the Doctor Bob Martin show. Don't Go Anywhere. Hi,
(40:05):
it's doctor Adam Brockman. We talk about health every week.
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Speaker 3 (41:16):
God Gold, welcome back. You're listening to the Doctor Bob
Martin Show. I'm doctor Adam Brockman and we've hit our
home stretch with doctor David Heipman. And uh, doctor David again,
thanks for being a voice of reason and also creating
this great graph that that shows, uh, basically are what
what we need to take a look at and change
(41:38):
as far as this epidemic, this OBC epidemic in the
United States. So doctor David, I want you to want
you to explain one last time so everybody listening can
can visualize this graph, what exactly the best way to
to to move forward with this information that you've created
and what what exactly is that information?
Speaker 4 (41:59):
Yeah, so the information is really simple. It started with
this lifelong career in health and wellness and working on patients.
But that realization of, wow, we buy a lot in America,
and we buy a lot of weight loss stuff, and
we buy a lot of supplements, and we buy a
lot of stuff to try to get healthy. And when
I looked at Japan and their obesity rate was basically flat,
(42:21):
their spending was basically flat, almost non existent. And then
you look at America starting in nineteen eighty, so rocket
ship going up, and suddenly we're spending eighty billion dollars
and probably even more than that if you start counting
in healthcare, and our obesity went all the way up
to forty one forty two percent, and our chronic diseases
are now six out of ten people. What the heck happened?
(42:44):
And it just makes you sit there and realize in
almost a dumbfounded way, because we know Japan has McDonald's,
Japan has vending machines everywhere, They even have a term
where they like to work themselves to death, and so
they have the high stress environment that America has, and
what the heck is going on? And it really just
comes down to when I was doing the research on this,
(43:06):
it is a fundamental cultural difference of the way that
they approach their life. They use all sorts of terms.
If you look back in their history, Eka guy, which
is not about being your workforce. It's actually about finding
peace in the things that you're doing. They believe in craftsmanship,
they believe in slow processes, they believe in community. The
(43:27):
Okinawans believe that you should only get to eighty percent full.
There's all these things that they do differently than American
culture does. And when you start to dive into that,
it's really easy to see as Americans what we can
start to do and that there's actually a lot of
hope that we don't have to give into this. We
can start making immediate changes.
Speaker 3 (43:49):
I agree with you, and again thanks thanks so much
for joining me again, doctor David Hetman, and I hope
you join us again soon because it said maybe you
can make it new graph for us since But you know, folks,
here's the takeaway. Your body. You've heard me say it.
Your body is a biological masterpiece. It was designed for vitality,
(44:11):
and it was designed for energy. It was designed ultimately
for resilience. So if you're struggling with your weight or
your health, start looking at the environment that you're swimming in,
and a divergence between the US and Japan shows us
that health isn't just about personal choices, it's about structural
ones as well. But until our policies catch up to
(44:34):
the science, the responsibility follows on us to build our
own environments, our own micro environments. If you will, I'm
doctor Adam Brockman. I want you to take charge of
your health, because that's your birthright. We'll see you next
hour on health Talk America presents The Doctor Bob Martin Show.
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