Despite advances in technology and medicine, and our high quality of life, Americans’ life expectancy has fallen to over 20 years behind other developed countries.

And with U.S. obesity rates on a steady incline, it’s only going to get worse.

In fact, it’s reaching epidemic proportions. If this catastrophic trend is not reversed quickly, you will,for the first time in history, see children with normal life spans lower than their parents.

How can this be true?

The current obesity statistics are frightening:

• Two-thirds of America’s adults are overweight or obese

• As many as 30 percent of U.S. children are overweight

• Childhood obesity has more than doubled within the past 25 years

• Childhood diabetes has increased 10-fold within the last 20 years

If you’ve made poor diet choices and maintain a sedentary lifestyle, you face an increased risk of diabetes, heart disease, many forms of cancer, and a whole host of other health risks.

Most drugs out there only mask symptoms—they don’t provide real cures. Fad diets and diet pills just don’t work.

Obviously, getting more exercise is an important step to help you reverse this trend. But the foods that you eat play an even more important role in your overall health, and one over which you have a great amount of control.

Cutting out certain foods and adding healthy ones will help.

But which ones should you add—and which ones should you avoid? There are facts about some foods that you probably don’t know (because the food companies and the FDA aren’t going to tell you).

That’s why I wrote this Special Report. In it, I’ll discuss 3 common foods: how they pose a risk to your health, and some alternatives you may want to consider.

HERE’S SCARY “FOOD” #1:

SOFT DRINKS—PERHAPS THE #1 CAUSE OF CHILDHOOD OBESITY

I don’t consider them foods at all. Yet, soft drinks and sweet drinks havetaken over as the number one source of calories in the American diet. They account for more than a quarter of all drinks consumed in the United States.

Frighteningly, more than 15 billion were sold in 2000. That works out to at least one 12-ounce can per day for every man,woman and child.

Children are heavy consumers of soft drinks, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It’s no wonder—kids today are bombarded with TV ads that associate the consumption of sugary soft drinks with an active,healthy lifestyle. They are available everywhere, from fast food restaurants to video stores.

And most school hallways are lined with vending machines that sell soft drinks—60%, according to the National Soft Drink Association.

One recent, independent, peer-reviewed study demonstrates a strong link between soda consumption and childhood obesity. Though many people assumed this to be true, there wasn’t any solid scientific evidence behind it.

But a team of Harvard researchers were the first to present evidence linking soft drink consumption to childhood obesity. After following the children for 19 months, they found that 12 year olds who drank soft drinks regularly were more likely to be overweight than those who didn’t.

In the past 10 years, soft drink consumption by children has almost doubled in the United States. Soda pop provides more added sugar in a typical 2-year old toddler’s diet than cookies, candy and ice cream combined. A full 56% of 8-year olds down soft drinks daily, and 33% of teenage boys drink at least 3 cans of soda a day.

HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP—AVOID IT LIKE THE PLAGUE!

Soda consumption is likely the largest dietary source of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) in the U.S.

Food and beverage manufacturers began switching their sweeteners from sucrose (table sugar) to corn syrup in the 1970s when they discovered that HFCS was not only cheaper to make, it is also nearly 20 times sweeter than table sugar.

I firmly believe that HFCS is a major contributor to the obesity epidemic in the United States.

In 1966, no one ate HFCS. In 2001, people in the U.S. ate close to 63 pounds each. Some pack on as much as 700 calories per day from HFCS.

This form of fructose is metabolized differently, and converts to fat more than any other sugar. It does not stimulate insulin secretion or enhance leptin, both of which act as key signals in regulating how much food you eat and your bodyweight.

Fructose in HFCS has no enzymes, vitamins or minerals, so it takes these micronutrients from your body while it assimilates itself for use. By comparison, other sources of fructose, such as fruit, do not create a problem for most people when used moderately (unless they already have insulin resistance), because they contain those micronutrients.