"600 words by Esther J. Cepeda"

In defense of 75 degrees

"600 Words" by Esther J. Cepeda

I'm cold.

Yes, I know I was saying that in the middle of February but it's still true.

Sandals? Tank tops? On the 23rd day of June? You've got to be kidding me! I wore shorts once on the first actual warm day of summer but instantly realized the error of my folly once I innocently stepped into a favorite haunt, where it's brrrrrrrrrrr cold!

Shorts or not, that ubiquitous dark Dallas Cowboys down jacket you saw me in last March? It's still with me wherever I go. And let me tell you: I might get a funny look or two but it only takes about 8 minutes before I'm the envy of the grocery store, coffee shop, library, restaurant, movie theater, train, you name it.

Room temperature in public spaces is a distant memory. Seventy-five degrees used to be that hallmark of cool comfort, dialed down to about seventy-three when an extra kick was needed to shake off the heat of the oppressive summer sun. No more.

Observed while sitting in my favorite coffee shop on the afternoon of a perfect summer day: women and small children paying for an iced coffee suddenly clawing at themselves to cover their bare arms and shoulders. Elderly couples toting coats. Tall, burly, master-tattooed tough guys in cutoff shirts and shorts, taking their bagel and cream cheese mid-meal outside to the patio tables. And me snug as a bug in my coat on my favorite couch.

And it's not just the coffee shop. Grocery stores – they have product to keep cool even as doors open and close letting hot bursts of air in right by the fresh fruit – have gone from cold to sub-zero. Movie theaters – an oasis for hot movie lovers – are places where you can see your own breath. Public transportation! We thank the god of planes, trains, and buses when we're not traveling in convection ovens, but I've seen children cry from well-meaning arctic blasts.

I've complained, but it's done no good. I've gone to the manager of my home away from home coffee shop, which happily collects a good fifteen percent of my annual income in coffee and cinnamon rolls alone, and asked for the temperature to be dialed down from "tundra" to "lake breeze" but what I get from the manager is a blank look.

She doesn't get it. Of course, she is about 185 pounds overweight – a baker, she's got the latitude – and breaks a sweat when it's over fifty. Me: I'm on the "athletic" range of the Body Mass Index, so sue me.

But it's not just her, its every manager of every public venue across the country, whether they be rail-thin, just right, or packin' a spare tire and they've all told me the same thing when I –and other more thickly-padded customers – complain: the comfort temperature has gone down. Unspoken, but obvious to anyone with eyes: the average weight of children and adults has gone up. A lot.

The Centers for Disease Control reported last November that more than one-third of U.S. adults – over 72 million people – were obese in 2005-2006. That’s 72 million people living in a society where not only is personal comfort king, but personal discomfort – the body’s natural way of telling us our bodies are injured or otherwise unhealthy – is controlled with external measures. In other words: "I’m carrying around an extra hundred pounds so therefore you must make it colder for me."

Can I convince you to dial the A/C up? Do it for whatever your favorite reason like to lessen the chemicals being released into the environment. Do it for those who need to realize maybe they shouldn’t be feeling quite so hot, or do it because the price of energy is skyrocketing and your wallet hurts.

Just please, let it be room temperature, and let those of us with normal body weights leave the coat at home.

Esther J. Cepeda writes the "600 Words" & "Pregunta del Dia" columns, and is also a Director at the Chicago-based United Neighborhood Organization. Her reporting and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of UNO. "600 words" is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact

eejaycee@600words.com

"Suicidio:" death translates to Hispanic teens

"600 Words" by Esther J. Cepeda

Hispanic teens are screaming for your help, can you hear them?

The Centers for Disease Control, in their biannual National Youth Risk Behavior Survey, recently reported that in 2007 the attempted suicide rate for Hispanic teens was 17.5 percent, compared to 11.6 percent for blacks and whites.

In their survey of 14,000 U.S. high school students, the CDC also found that while fewer whites and blacks drink, smoke and engage in sexual activity now than 16 years ago, Hispanic teens have made no progress. Sadly, horribly – in the death department, they've gotten more organized: more than one in ten (1.3) Latinos and Latinas (1.4) had a suicide plan.

Having been a high school bilingual algebra teacher I can tell you it wasn't just the gang-banger-wannabes, the straight-from-the-farm-immigrants, or the "emos" (those sporting a style of dress reminiscent of the 80's new-wave style which leans into all-black "Goth" clothing indicating depression, but features splashes of color which symbolize strong emotions), who have serious emotional issues they want you to recognize, it’s the good, popular students, too.

In a story published in Hispanic Link Weekly Report, Glenn Flores, professor of Pediatrics and Public Health at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, is quoted thusly about why the rates of suicide attempts are higher among Hispanic youth. "One can speculate that it may relate to a combination on the extra stress of being caught between two cultures and languages…along with poor mental health care for Latinos," he says.

Understatement of the year!

According to the data, in 1991, the number of Hispanic high school students attempting suicide one or more times in the previous months was 7.9 percent. It spiked at 13.6 percent in '93, fell with some blips – one in 2005, which coincided with the rise in public animosity toward illegal immigration – and settled at 10.2 percent in 2007.

During all this time, few of the environmental factors have changed: these kids were still living in a society completely new and in many ways completely at odds with their parents' country of origin – a reality universal to all first generation Americans. Even when language isn't a barrier, trying to navigate the "old culture" while trying to fit into the new one they're immersed in is no walk in the park.

The culture at home – I generalize Hispanic households here – is one where rigid Catholicism is a main driver, and "depression" doesn't exist. If you're reading this and you're Hispanic, raise your hand if you ever heard the following statement: "Sad? What in the world do you have to be sad about? When I was your age we didn't have shoes or running water, we had nothing. You have nothing to be sad about."

And forget, for a moment, troubled kids – those with alcoholism or abuse in their families, those tied to rough gang-types, those who don't have a lot going for them – the "good kids" have serious struggles as well.

Again, raise your hand if you know what it's like to be the shining beacon of hope for your family, with all the promise of the family's future – and, not coincidentally – and all the weight of the world on your shoulders. First to go to college? Going to get in trouble if you don't get straight A's? Depended on to better the family's life? Some of you already know what I'm talking about.

These are but few examples from the spark-eliciting process of blending cultures with generations with sexes and new experiences during the torrid teen years.

None of these are judgements – many of these cultural norms and expectations have positive aspects, and a rightful place in the context of the immigrant and first-generation experience – they are simply realities you, and everyone who comes into contact with a young Latino man or woman, should know.

And don't fall into your own despair, there's nothing but upside here: now that you know, keep your eyes and ears open and just be there. Your informed, nosy, well-intentioned intrusion into a surly teen's life can make all the difference in the world.

Esther J. Cepeda writes the “600 Words” & “Pregunta del Dia” columns, and is also a Director at the Chicago-based United Neighborhood Organization. Her reporting and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of UNO. “600 words” is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com

Doctors, please: “habla culture,” not language

"600 Words" by Esther J. Cepeda

If the English language unites us as a country, and other languages are what supposedly divide us, then cultural understanding is the bridge – and the best hope – for fixing health care inequities for U.S. minorities.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation recently announced it was going to devote $300 million to setting national standards to fix the problem, noting – just to take diabetes as an example – that African Americans lose legs to amputations at a rate nearly five times that of whites.

While the Johnson Foundation grant is designed to "reduce racial and ethnic disparities," none of their information even mentioned Hispanic/Latino patients, but I can tell you we aren’t far behind. The National Diabetes Education Program of the National Institutes of Health says that on average, about 2.5 million, or 9.5 percent of Hispanic and Latino Americans aged 20 years or older have been diagnosed with diabetes. Mexican Americans and residents of Puerto Rico are almost twice as likely to have diabetes as non-Hispanic whites of similar age, and are two to four times more likely to have their legs amputated due to the disease.

As with diabetes, obesity, breast cancer, Alzheimer’s, and so many other diseases, the impact on minorities is far greater than on white populations. And though the most-prescribed salvo is eliminating medical professionals’ language barriers, it’s obviously not just about linguistics.

Constantina Mizis, a nationally-recognized expert in the field of cross-cultural healthcare and the Multicultural Outreach Manager for the Greater Illinois chapter of the American Alzheimer’s Association, says, "You can’t think about speaking a language, you have to speak culture. I tell doctors and nurses that culture – the collections of how different groups of people see and feel life, death, joy and even their health – paints everything."

With such a wide assortment of cultures – not just in the population of sick people, but in the corps of doctors and nurses practicing medicine today – the most important cultural/linguistic tools for healthcare providers are open ears and eyes.

Understanding that, according to a June 2007 study titled Cultural Characteristics of African Americans: Implications for the Design of Trials that Target Behavior and Health Promotion Programs, African Americans’ driving cultural forces are religion, family structure, general mistrust of Caucasians, a feeling of being undervalued and not respected as a people, a feeling of limited resources and limited opportunities to make lifestyle changes and a deep desire to preservation their ethnic identity, is crucial.

Knowing that level eye contact, warm greetings that include hugs and hand-holding, chit-chat before and after asking for a count of ailments, and showing reverence are key to winning over Latino patients is also very important.

And yes, the highly educated doctors and nurses caring for us should know that certain cultures aren’t going to respond to "prescriptions" such as cutting down on rice – a staple in Latino and Asian households – or to going out for long walks which are, sadly, a danger in many minority communities.

But most important are the skills of trained observers, which might really go a long way to bettering healthcare for patients of all colors and ethnicities.

"It’s not just what [health care practitioners] say or in what language," Mizis says, "it’s how they say it. Notice if the patient is intimidated, look at the body language, talk in simple language and be friendly. It’s all about gaining patients’ confidence."

Esther J. Cepeda writes the “600 Words” & “Pregunta del Dia” columns, and is also a Director at the Chicago-based United Neighborhood Organization. Her reporting and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of UNO. “600 words” is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com

Dangerous optimism: JAMA study not as happy for Hispanics

“600 Words” by Esther J. Cepeda

Let’s just face it: we’re fat. Ok, maybe not you, specifically, dear reader, but we Americans are tipping the scales.

The latest world ranking put our affluent girths at numbers five for men and eight for women, not surprising for the home of the super-size value meal. The statistics are astounding: the Endocrine Society of America and the Centers for Disease Control estimated from 2004 Census numbers that obesity currently results in an estimated 400,000 deaths annually and costs the U.S. nearly $122.9 billion bucks. And, just one mortality statistic for you just to put it in context: the number one killer of women? Heart disease – obesity’s good pal.

But there is, seemingly, a light at the end of the tunnel. The Journal of the American Medical Association just published a report called High Body Mass Index for Age Among US Children and Adolescents, 2003-2006 which posits that maybe the incidence of childhood obesity in kids ages 2-19 has leveled off. Possibly.

In terms of longitudinal studies, data collected from the 1960’s to 2006 is a small data set, and the authors didn’t make any firm proclamations. But after accounting for ambiguities such as the difference in what was considered obese then and today, researchers found that obesity rates in kids have held steady at 32 percent since 1999.

This is progress, this is good news! This proves that with education and advocacy lives can be changed…for some. For others the numbers are not as celebratory. Let us be happy that Hispanic and African American children are experiencing the possible plateau at the same rates as the rest of the population but in truth, compared to white kids, they’re still not doing very well.

The most recent data show that 14.5 percent of white girls ages 12 to 19 are obese compared to 20 percent of Mexican American girls and 28 percent of African American girls. Mexican American boys are also heavier than Caucasian boys. Any school teacher in America could accurately recite those statistics without reading the study but just by looking at their classrooms: Hispanic kids are fatter than other kids.

My colorblind side, of course, believes that no child should suffer from the kind of over-malnutrition that leads to Type-2 diabetes, increased risk of heart-attacks and general ill-health regardless of race or ethnicity. But my brown eyes see dark-skinned ticking time bombs and I wonder what the shape of our young Latino adults will be in 2050 when we make up 29 percent of the population.

And why should it matter to anyone who’s not Hispanic?

“Because the Latino is the backbone of the American economy,” Dr. Elena Rios, President and CEO of the National Hispanic Medical Health Association told me yesterday. “We are fast becoming the biggest group [of employees] and the youngest. [The concern] is not just about helping ‘our community’ understand, it’s important that everybody understand that if we don’t control this we’re going to see more diabetics, more amputations, more blindness and lower employee productivity.”

“If we ignore this, it’s going to have a direct impact on the general economic health of America,” Elena said, “it’s going to be worse for Hispanics and for all the small business, hotels, factories, and every industry that relies on productive and healthy Hispanics.”

This is not an “immigration issue” so don’t bother emailing me to question the legality of these workers. The facts are that by 2050 most of the Latinos you know will be U.S.-born and as American as mami and apple flan. So let’s turn our attention to both.

“Food is an important part of the Latino culture,” Dr. Elena said sort of rolling her eyes, “we do believe in celebration and we have strong family values so our celebrations end up being every Sunday at dinner, but that’s why we need to communicate about how to eat right and eat better.”

“We can’t stop the good efforts to target the Hispanic population, and we have to do better at helping the non-Hispanic health providers share this knowledge with the communities they serve,” Elena said, “there is no magic bullet. It’s a social change, a transformation in society. It’s just like what happened with smoking it took us thirty years for knowledge and research studies to trickle down to everyday life.”

So bottom line: less obese kids is great all around but even less Hispanic and African American kids obese will be that much better. JAMA’s statistics aren’t cause for a sigh of relief and a turn to other matters. As Karen Carpenter and Dr. Rios said: “We’ve only just begun.” But we’re on our way, and already seeing the positive progress.

Esther J. Cepeda writes the “600 Words” & “Pregunta del Dia” columns, and is also a Director at the Chicago-based United Neighborhood Organization. Her reporting and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of UNO. “600 words” is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com

Prostitution's Hidden victims: boys

"600 Words" by Esther J. Cepeda

That "dirty old man" who pays cash to use women as disposable sex toys may have started out as a bewildered, ten-year-old boy.

Of the many shocking revelations meticulously documented in the Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation’s report "Deconstructing the Demand for Prostitution" released late last week, the most heartbreaking and disturbing was that among men who frequently pay prostitutes for sex, many had their first sexual experience paid for by a close relative – at as tender an age as ten.

In 2006 and 2007, a team of twelve male and female project interviewers from CAASE and a group called Prostitution Research Education set out to look into the minds of Chicago men who pay for sex from the estimated 16,000 to 25,000 women in the city who sell their services. They advertised their study on Craigslist, Chicago After Dark, and the Chicago Reader, and eventually spoke for two hours each with 113 men ages 20-71.

Their "average" john was 39 years old, only slightly more likely African American than Caucasian, overwhelmingly college-educated and making over $40,000 a year, with a girlfriend or wife at home. A little over half of them bought sex from once a month to several times in one week, soliciting women on the internet, in person, and through escort services alike.

The average age of their first purchase was 21 with the jaw-dropping age of ten pulling down the average. These stark numbers – 29% of these guys’ first time ever was paid and 17% had that first experience on a dad’s dime – round out the tragedy.

"We have to do a lot better job of talking about exploitation and violence toward women just to counteract the overwhelming glamorization of prostitution in this country," study author Rachel Durchslag told me last week. "One thing we need to do is talk to young men about this issue. Moms and dads don’t want to talk to their sons about this but with one quarter of our participants reporting they had their first paid experience before the age of seventeen, it tells me we have to talk to dads about how to bond with their sons with some healthy masculinity instead of based on exploitation and domination."

Up until now, the conversation about the fallout of pay-to-play has been focused on the female part of the prostitution equation. The facts in this report, found on http://www.caase.org, point to the serious need to intervene in the lives of very young men today in order to make a difference in the lives of women and men – both those involved in prostitution transactions and those hurt by after-effects like sexually transmitted diseases, the pain of betrayal, and the inability to have healthy relationships – for generations to come.

That’s a tall order in a society where young boys and girls are constantly bombarded by images of ultra-sexual women, and pimp culture has become so mainstream you can buy pre-packaged costumes at your local Halloween supply store. The same society where parents scoff at the idea of their 8^{th-graders learning about condoms in health ed. classes.}

"Absolutely young women are growing up with unbelievable amounts of pressure to be sexual but that’s only half of the equation. Prostitution not only harms women in communities but harms men as well," Rachel said, citing the guilt, shame, and real remorse the men in the study expressed to their interviewers after having the opportunity – in many cases for the first time in their lives – to talk openly about their behavior and feelings out.

Calling all moms and dads: get over your embarrassment about the "sex talk." Your sons and daughters need you to have frank and open heart-to-heart conversations about sexual health and responsibility, today. Sexual victimization for either gender can happen early but it’s never too late to do everything possible to avoid it.

Esther J. Cepeda writes the “600 Words” & “Pregunta del Dia” columns, and is also a Director at the Chicago-based United Neighborhood Organization. Her reporting and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of UNO. “600 words” is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com

Cynic’s guide to pink ribbons

"600 Words" by Esther J. Cepeda

I like breasts as much as the next guy – even more, maybe – they feed babies, provide shock absorption, and are pleasing to look at. No downside, right? Well, not unless they get cancer. Many have.

The race to their cure has become a global, multi-billion dollar philanthropic and cultural phenomenon – and that’s how I came to be annoyed by pink ribbons.

Don’t worry, I didn’t stay annoyed, but who could have blamed me when last week on one day alone I ran across “breast cancer awareness” batteries at the 7-Eleven, a “Think Pink” accessory pack for a kids’ portable video game at Circuit City, and a pink ribbon Chicago Department of Streets and Sanitation street-sweeper!

“Come ON!” I thought, “How many ways can marketers make money off women’s breasts?!” That was followed immediately by my standard, “It’s not even the number one killer of women in the U.S.!” That would be heart disease, followed by cancers (lung!), strokes, lung disease in general, and Alzheimer’s disease, just FYI.

And it’s not even October yet, but aahhh, close to Mother’s Day.

But rather than remain peeved at the preponderance of pink in my life, I instead bowed to the temple of what will go down as one of the strongest consumer brands in history –one that actually saves real women’s lives – the Susan G. Komen For the Cure breast cancer awareness foundation, and its pink ribbons.

Google ‘em if you want, you know the story: 25 years, a promise between two sisters, the Y-Me Race for the cure, etc. I blew in a call to ask them if they felt their message was becoming diluted because of the marketing blitz, if people are getting tired of it all.

“We have tested, informally, in various ways and found that both men and women are still very open to the messages,” Caroline Wall, Manager for Cause Marketing Operations told me yesterday. “We’re trying to engage all different types of niches and consumer groups…whether it be Kitchen Aid mixers, or Major League Baseball, or Garth Brooks.”

I became interested in the success of the brand not realizing the power of the pink to pervade different cultures and languages. And not realizing how desperately that’s needed.

I was thinking along the lines of targets to sell products to, after all, the pink ribbon peddled 58 million green dollars – 20% of Komen’s revenue – in 2006, according to one Los Angeles Times article. And yes, there have been some unscrupulous logo users, which Komen actively roots out, and certainly no shortage of critics of the success of the campaign. But back to those “targets.”

“We don’t want to pigeon-hole anyone but there are opportunities to have an ‘in’ with a particular population, for instance, the African American and Latino communities through product placement,” she said, noting that black and Hispanic women get diagnosed way later than Caucasians.

The numbers: breast is the most common cancer in African American women and the second leading cause of cancer death among African American women. It’s the most commonly diagnosed and the leading cause of cancer death among Hispanic/Latina women.

Consider my cynical mouth shut.

Mother’s day breast-health support buyer beware, yes you can look on their web site to make sure the pink products you want to purchase will fulfill Komen’s mission of funding research for a cure. Shop smart and find a balance but don’t automatically buy into the backlash.

“There are still over 200,000 women diagnosed with breast cancer every day in this country,” Caroline said, “and they would say they’re not tired of hearing about it."

Esther J. Cepeda writes the “600 Words” & “Pregunta del Dia” columns, and is also a Director at the Chicago-based United Neighborhood Organization. Her reporting and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of UNO. “600 words” is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com

Feeling the Pain

"600 Words" by Esther J Cepeda

If you live in Chicago, or any other world-class city like New York or LA, you have a unique civic pride, a knowing that wherever your travels may take you – the South Pole, New Guinea, or Beijing – anyone you bump into will know where you’re from.

Rarely do you encounter someone in Guam who will respond to “I’m from Chicago” with “Oh, isn’t that where the schoolchildren get killed on their way to school?”

That doesn’t make it any less true.

The harsh reality is that thirty-four Chicago Public School children died violently in 2007, at least that many are gone so far this year, and we haven’t even begun to imagine how many more will be claimed by New Year’s eve.

The million dollar question is what to do about it. Everything has been put on the table: SWAT teams have been deployed, gun laws proposed, anti-violence curriculum put in schools, even trained ex-gang members have trickled into the streets to help “mediate” turf battles. But no silver bullet, if you’ll pardon the pun, has put a dent in the tensions roiling neighborhoods all over Chicago.

The politicians and the church leaders have had their say about what it will take to end the carnage. Look at “Letters to the Editor” pages in Chicago you’ll see the general public weighing in, mostly heaping blame on “careless parents.” They’ve all got good points, we’ve heard them all before.

Since innovative solutions are in order, I thought I’d ask for one from a different kind of expert. I called up Marco Marsen, aka the “Billion Dollar Problem Solver,” a marketing wiz for the likes of myriad successful corporations, “one of America’s top Out-of-the-Box thinkers,” and author of “Why We Haven't Won the Wars on Poverty, Drugs or Terror" to get a different take on things.

Now don’t get too excited, he didn’t have “an answer,” but did throw out the beginning of one. It goes a little something like this: we need to start caring.

“We’re all in this together,” he told me recently, while on tour for his new book The Lion’s Way. “But the people who live in poverty, the people who don’t have health care and have to choose between getting a tooth treated and paying the rent – they’ve been forgotten.”

“Whether you like it or not, the people who are pulling the triggers are the victims of all the failings of us as a society,” he says, “The feeling of ‘I don’t have any choices so I’m going to take matters into my own hands’ is what’s driving this.”

Marco thinks we Americans – who claim to live in the greatest country in the world –

consider those who lash out in our inequitable society a problem we have no part or responsibility in.

And he’s right. How many of us have thought: “‘I’m’ never part of the problem, so ‘I’ can never be part of the solution.”

We’re all worried about our wallets and the economy, but not overly concerned about who dies in the “bad parts of the city.” Its human nature: the gas tank bill is in your face, while dead children on the 6 o’clock news is sad, but doesn’t affect your life past the sound-byte. Unless you live in those “bad parts” of the city, that is.

The actual impact of what happens in those “bad parts” affects us as members of our society in immeasurable ways – spiritual, emotional, economic – that message just hasn’t hit home yet.

“I don’t blame people – why would anyone want to feel the pain?” Marco says, “But at the end of the day, we’re all in this together.”

From the Billion Dollar Problem Solver: not an “answer,” just the beginning of one: we need to start feeling the pain.

Esther J. Cepeda writes the “600 Words” & “Pregunta del Dia” columns, and is also a Director at the Chicago-based United Neighborhood Organization. Her reporting and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of UNO. “600 words” is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com

Twenty-dollar Cheetos

Can Global Food Shortage + Obesity Epidemic = better nutrition?

"600 Words" by Esther J. Cepeda

Food prices are through the roof. It's gettin' ugly out there: Australia, North Korea, Zimbabwe, Haiti are all facing severe food shortages.

But why leave the Americas? Millions of Mexicans took to the streets last year because the Sponge-Bobian fantasy that cars running on corn would save the world drove the humble tortilla into caviar-land.

Too "third world" for you? How about the rice restrictions at Costco - ahhh, now they're hitting us where it hurts! You don't pull basics from overly-lit suburban temples of excess without grabbing a headline or two.

But where some see another kick to the groin of our ailing economy, I have a grand vision: the Twenty-dollar Cheeto.

First some facts: according to the Endocrine Society of America and the Centers for Disease Control, obesity is "the number one health threat facing America." Based on numbers from 2004, they say obesity currently results in an estimated 400,000 deaths annually and costs the U.S. nearly $122.9 billion bucks. Think globally, and we're talking over 1 billion overweight adults and 300 million clinically obese. Ouch.

And corn prices - you could pick up 56 pounds for $2 in January 2006, by January 2008 the predictions looked closer to $5 per bushel, according to the USDA National Agriculture Statistics Service. Meat that starts out as cows and pigs eat...well, you get the picture.

Which brings me back to my fantasy: the twenty-dollar Cheeto.

I loooove Cheetos, who doesn't? Poor people who buy their food at the corner store love 'em, working class folks who get groceries from the food shelter love 'em, rich people who didn't fill up at Charlie Trotter's love 'em.

Now take higher demand and lower supplies of corn products, add it to the US and Mexico - the numbers 9 and 19 fattest countries in the world, according to the World Health Organization - factor in a plunging economy and 24-hour news cycles, and that equals a prime teaching moment for getting people to eat healthier.

Inexplicably, spokespersons for the Centers for Disease Control, the U.S. Health Department, the American Heart Association and the few med schools I called hadn't even considered the possibility that the challenge of global food scarcity might be a perfect opportunity.

But never mind the policy wonks, the wheels have already started turning at food banks and pantries.

These are the people who beg the industrial food complex for left-over mac-n-cheese, canned ravioli, and pretzels to give to people who can't afford it otherwise. People like the good folks at the Greater Chicago Food Depository.

"Rising costs for food is affecting everything we do," Bob Dolgan of the GCFD told me. "Our most recent numbers show we're up 12% over last year - it's really affecting our pantry and soup kitchens."

But like me - worried the processed, packaged food the poorest of our communities swallow in even greater amounts during an economic downturn creates more health problems in later years - Bob sees the up-side. And GCFD had already decided to wean themselves off the corn.

"With higher costs for food producers we're relying less on donations and more on fundraising. But that lets us control the nutritional value of the products, so we're actually purchasing more fresh fruits and vegetables."

Bob didn't want to speculate what sort of ultra-effective nutrition education campaigns this conundrum could spur, instead we took a moment to savor the possibility of the twenty dollar Cheeto - so delicious, so expensive. A lunchtime staple today, a pleasant, distant memory running through the minds of 1.3 billion thinner bodies tomorrow.

Esther J. Cepeda writes the "600 Words" & "Pregunta del Dia" columns, and is also a Director at the Chicago-based United Neighborhood Organization. Her reporting and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of UNO. "600 words" is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com