https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/obesity-economics-how-subsidies-distort-the-american-diet/

"Was the government to prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now.”

-Thomas Jefferson

Let me introduce you to Sam. Sam has obesity, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure. His diet consists mostly of refined grains and trans fats. He’s got cabinets full of dirt-cheap junk food and sky-high healthcare costs to address its effects. He takes home $27,000 a year, but https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/national-deficit/#:~:text=Understanding%20the%20National%20Deficit&text=In%20FY%202025%2C%20the%20federal,referred%20to%20as%20deficit%20spending.

.

As a real-life https://youtu.be/N8wxb-wwQnA?si=y0hb8idPxU48GAH6&t=92

.

Obesity is a top driver of healthcare costs. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0749379713003206

in the developed world.

The negative impact of subsidized crop consumption on health — while it can’t be called causal — persists even after controlling for age, sex, and socioeconomic factors. But life does not control for those factors.

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The Great Grain Giveaway

The federal government recommends one diet to Americans, and subsidizes another. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans from the USDA and HHS promote eating fruits, vegetables, whole grains, protein, and moderate dairy, while limiting saturated fats, sugars, salt, and refined grains. According to data compiled for https://meatonomics.com/

to lower costs.)

Instead, the US spends tens of billions annually to subsidize seven major commodities. The three largest farm subsidy programs contribute 70 percent of funds to producers of just three crops — corn, soybeans, and wheat. Approximately 30-40 percent of US corn, over half of soybeans, and nearly all sorghum feed livestock, heavily discounting high-fat, https://extension.umn.edu/pasture-based-dairy/grass-fed-cows-produce-healthier-milk

). The prevalence of grain-fed livestock generates demand for commodities used to feed them, completing the circle.

Subsidies also contribute to our consumption of refined grains, sugary drinks, and processed foods. About five percent of corn becomes artificially cheap high-fructose corn syrup (which https://www.npr.org/2022/12/29/1145952357/throughline-how-one-company-contributed-greatly-to-americas-sweet-tooth

.

My Uncle Sam is sick because he eats the food the government makes artificially more affordable. Those foods are poorer in quality and more harmful to health than their unsubsidized alternatives. We are paying to make ourselves sicker.

Diet-Related Health Issues Fuel Healthcare Costs

For more than 20 years, the FDA has known that trans fats and refined grains harm health, damage metabolism, and cause disease. Diet-related illnesses like obesity, Type 2 diabetes, and high blood pressure are increasing, while heart disease remains the leading cause of death. These epidemics are intertwined at the artery level, and both contribute hugely to rising US health care costs.

In an economic order awash with subsidies and regulation, agricultural policy is health policy. Government subsidies for agricultural products have shaped the current American nutritional environment, and they are https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3489137/

obesity trends.

An article in the https://www.ajpmonline.org/article/S0749-3797%2813%2900320-6/fulltext

confirms: “Current agricultural policy remains largely uninformed by public health discourse.”

Johns Hopkins physician (and current https://www.fda.gov/about-fda/fda-organization/martin-makary

the disconnect clearly. “Half of all federal spending is going to health care in its many hidden forms,” he told an interviewer in October, but Americans continue “getting sicker and sicker… Chronic diseases are on the rise. Cancers are on the rise. And we have the most medicated generation in human history.”

We’re getting https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/wr/mm7216a7.htm

is at taxpayer expense.

A Better Answer Than Ozempic?

Government spending on healthcare https://budget.house.gov/press-release/governments-mandatory-health-care-spending-now-exceeds-entire-discretionary-budget#:~:text=Discretionary%20funding%20now%20makes%20up,forecasted%20to%20reach%20%241.67%20trillion

: cancers, heart disease, infection, stroke, and cirrhosis.

Late last year, the https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-first-treatment-reduce-risk-serious-heart-problems-specifically-adults-obesity-or

on direct and indirect costs from obesity.

It has a certain economic logic. Instead of waiting for a patient to develop a cascade of expensive comorbidities like heart failure or diabetes, we https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/4818

suggests our efforts are counterproductive.

The Tangled Web of Farm Subsidies

To understand the insanity of American agricultural and health policy, it’s hard to do better than comedian-illusionists Penn & Teller, who in characteristically salty style explained it this way 15 years ago:

High fructose corn syrup is a dirt-cheap way to add sweetener and extend shelf life. And why is it so cheap? Because we subsidize corn farmers! Our government gives about 10 billion of our tax dollars to corn farmers every year so they can produce more corn than we need. They then sell the corn at artificially low prices. They spend our money to make corn syrup cheap, and now the same government that uses our tax money to keep soft drinks cheap wants more of our tax money to make soft drinks more expensive. Does anyone else think this is incredibly f—d up?

Yes, Penn. We do. And since that clip aired, obesity rates have worsened https://usafacts.org/articles/obesity-rate-nearly-triples-united-states-over-last-50-years/

.

Rather than cut back on his terrible diet, Uncle Sam wants us to pony up for weight loss drugs — to undo what our food policy has done.

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Tue, 12/23/2025 - 15:25

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