This report was originally published by Michael Snyder at The American Dream
After reading the information contained in this article, you will probably
find yourself questioning if America is going to be able to survive for much
longer, because our young people are a complete and total mess. Yes, all
generations of Americans have had their problems, but this generation appears
to be particularly screwed up. Obesity rates are at all-time highs, a third
of all American teens have not read a single book within the past year, and
the average high school senior spends six hours a day on the Internet. On top
of all that, we are seeing unprecedented levels of suicide, drug overdoses
and liver disease (due to heavy drinking) among our young people. Like other
empires throughout world history, will we be undone by our own excesses?
Let’s start by talking about obesity. At this point, so many of our young
people are overweight that military recruiters are having a very difficult
time finding enough “suitable
candidates for military service”…
The study, featuring roughly 18,000 randomly selected participants across
each of the service branches, showed that almost 66 percent of
service members are considered to be either overweight or obese,
based on the military’s use of body mass index as a measuring standard.
While the number of overweight service members is a cause for concern, it
correlates with the obesity epidemic plaguing the United States, where, as of
2015, one in three young adults are considered too fat to enlist, creating
a difficult environment for recruiters to find suitable candidates for
military service.
Right now, obesity among U.S. adults is at an all-time high,
and one of the big reasons for this is because about a third of us are
stuffing our faces with fast food on a daily basis.
The following comes from ABC News…
A government study has found that 1 in 3 U.S. adults eat fast food on any given day. That’s
about 85 million people.
It’s the first federal study to look at how often adults eat fast food. An
earlier study found a similar proportion of children and
adolescents ate it on any given day.
I was absolutely stunned when I saw that.
85 million people a day are eating fast food?
No wonder we have such a problem.
Another brand new study found that one-third of all American
teenagers haven’t
read a single book in the past year…
A new study of American
teenagers and their reading habits finds that a third haven’t
read a book — in hardcopy or on a device like a Kindle — in the past year.
Researchers from San Diego State University took a look at data from four
decades of a “nationally-based lifestyle survey studying teens,” StudyFinds.com reports.
In total, more than a million teens provided information.
To me, this is a tremendous indictment of our system of education.
Even if these kids are not reading on their own, our schools should be
forcing them to read books.
This really hits home for me, because I love to read. In fact, I don’t
know where I would be today if I had not spent enormous amounts of time
reading books on my own while I was growing up.
Sadly, instead of reading books our high school seniors are spending an
average of six hours a day on “social
media, texting, gaming and surfing the web”…
“The meteoric rise of internet-based activities cannot be understated:
between social media, texting, gaming, and surfing the web, the
average high school senior spent six hours a day online in 2016
— double the time from a decade earlier. Eighth graders (4 hours a day) and
tenth graders (5 hours a day) didn’t lag far behind,” the report finds.
Six hours a day?
That is almost a full-time job.
This is one of the reasons why the Internet is the focus of my work. Yes,
I have written a few books, but if we are going to reach the next
generation with the truth we have got to reach them where they are.
And where they are is on the Internet.
In addition to everything that you have read so far, let me also share
with you some numbers from a recent CDC study.
According to the CDC, drug overdose rates among our young people have been absolutely soaring…
Among men ages 24 to 35, overdose rates rose by more than 25%
each year between 2014 and 2016; nearly 50 out of every 100,000
people in this population died of overdose-related causes by 2016. Women ages
45 to 54 had the most overdoses overall, but those ages 15 to 24 saw the
highest rate of increase: about a 19% jump per year between 2014
and 2016.
And the CDC also found that liver disease (due to heavy drinking) is
rapidly rising among young adults…
Liver disease replaced HIV
as the sixth-leading killer of adults ages 25 to 44 in
2016. Among men and women ages 25 to 34, deaths from liver disease and
cirrhosis increased by about 11% and 8% per year, respectively, between 2006
and 2016. Older adults, however, still die of liver disease at much higher
rates than young adults.
But the most tragic fact from that entire study is that suicide is now the second leading
cause of death for Americans from age 15 to age 24…
Suicide is now the second-leading cause of death among people ages
15 to 24, increasing by 7% in this group each year between 2014 and
2016. It’s also the third-leading cause of death among people ages 25 to 44,
killing almost 17 of every 100,000 people in this population in 2016.
Whether you like it or not, young people are the future of our country.
Yes, our country is a huge mess today, but what is it going to look like
when they become the “leaders of tomorrow”?
In order for a nation to be great, it needs to be made up of great people,
and at this moment it is very difficult to be optimistic about the future of
our nation…
***
About the author: Michael Snyder is a
nationally syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is
publisher of The Most Important News and the
author of four books including The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters.
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