The New Tobacco

In the news lately I've heard fast-food referred to as the "new tobacco". What that means, of course, isn't that fast food will become as addictive as cigarettes, but that the whole industry will be sued to recompense the fatties that can't stop eating so much. Instead of fast food being the "new tobacco" I have a proposal for something else to take it's place...

With tobacco, I guess, the argument was that since it causes so many health problems even in people who don't smoke, that the cost to society was too great. Somehow the big tobacco companies must be forced to pay in order to reimburse society for the huge health and other expenses.

Although I think it's laughably silly, that's the thinking with fast food. In fact, a recent film fittingly called, Supersize Me! dramatizes the health problems of a man who ate nothing but fast food for 30 days. Last year, federal researchers announced that the health-care costs of obesity now rival those of smoking, with $92.6 billion spent in 2002 alone. So you can see, fast food is well on it's way to becoming "The New Tobacco".

However, there's something else that's way more dangerous to our society. No, I'm not referring to liberalism although that is a big danger.

I propose that we make Divorce the new tobacco. A recent study released by The Heritage Foundation and available here documents the high cost to our society.

For one thing, divorce has become an epidemic in our society,

...in 1950 for every hundred children born, that year, 12 entered a broken family --- four were born out of wedlock and eight suffered the divorce of their parents. By the year 2000 that number had risen five fold and for every 100 children born 60 entered a broken family: 33 born out of wedlock and 27 suffering the divorce of their parents.

The article goes on to summarize the huge emotional impact,

The children of parents who reject each other suffer: in deep emotional pain, ill health, depression, anxiety, even shortened life span; more drop out of school, less go to college, they earn less income, they develop more addictions to drugs and alcohol, and they engage in increased violence or suffer it within their homes.

This excellent article from The Heritage Foundation only scratches the surface of problems caused by divorce. In fact, the effects are so well documented and well reported that you'll find thousands of sites on the web reporting on it's damage.

Realistically, I know Divorce won't become "The New Tobacco". Obviously we can't sue people and force them to stay together and there are circumstances where divorce is the preferable option. Still, it would be nice if we could figure out a way to help people remain in committed marriages with all of the benefits to their children, themselves and to the rest of the society.

The Heritage Foundation report sums it up this way:

In this time of an obvious failure of one phase of America’s experiment with freedom, the challenge before you, the leaders of this nation, is how to lead America back to having a culture of belonging rather than being a culture of rejection; to being a country where people and families belong to each other and especially fathers belong first to the mothers of their children and mothers belong first to the fathers. Parents belonging to each other are what children need more than anything else this nation can give them.

Posted by jdmays at May 17, 2004 01:16 AM | TrackBack