Will The Real Green Giant Please Stand Up?

Mountain Dew: the red-handed, or in this case green-handed, innocent, bubbly malefactor behind the rotting teeth of Appalachia’s forgotten mountaineers. It’s unrealistic, quite frankly bizarre, to privileged city dwellers such as us to consider Mountain Dew of all things a culprit behind the expeditiously decaying health of the Appalachian people, a region renowned for its grandiose beauty and picturesque setting. Yet to say that this particular region in America is disadvantaged would be a serious understatement. According to a two year investigation conducted by correspondent Barbara Walters of ABC News, Central Appalachia has up to three times the national poverty rate, an epidemic of prescription drug abuse, the shortest life span in the nation, toothlessness, cancer and chronic depression. Read More: http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=6865077#.T49Z2qtSTEc. Another article details the gross mortality rate of the Appalachian people, and goes into depth the spectrum of health concerns that continuously hold steady their health statuses as some of the worst in the entire country. Read more: https://sites.google.com/a/cypanthers.org/appalachia-america-s-forgotten-people/Home/health. As discussed in class, it is unwise to blame the big name companies that export these nutritionally malign goods, this capitalist ideal exemplified by the Latin saying “Caveat Emptor,” or let the buyer beware. We tend to believe that it’s the parents’ or school systems’ responsibility for the growing obesity problem our current generation is facing, and although there is merit behind this commonly shared belief, it is certainly not without fault.

               As Herbert Hoover once spoke of the rugged individual, so too did this notion echo with other pro-business, pro-capitalist presidents that came after him, who focused more on productivity and less on what seemingly is considered to this day socialist intervention, straying from the laissez-faire, and leaving the mountain people to face their own predisposed, penniless states in the dark. It wasn’t until President John F. Kennedy showcased this crisis on a national stage in 1960, along with the help of his brother, Bobby, eight years later. Four years before Bobby would travel the oldest purple mountains of America, Lyndon B Johnson would declare a "War on Poverty" in the Appalachians in ‘64. Despite the efforts of many government officials, as well as poets, writers, and artists who famously depicted the stress and worry forever imprinted on the faces of the children of Appalachia, the Appalachian Mountains is still quietly regarded as the poorest region of the country, comparative to that of third world countries, the underlying irony in that these countries receive more international attention and assistance as opposed to this region which lies smack dab in the most powerful country in the world.

               Similar to Barbara Walter’s parting with this two year investigation, there’s an ever-present entity that embodies the hope and fighting spirit of these guarded yet proud mountaineers. Watch more: http://abcnews.go.com/2020/video/history-appalachia-6885766?tab=12841679. Although there’s no lucid solution to this debilitating problem, it’s important to spread the word and re-bring this forgotten region to national awareness, that there are people out there in poverty who can no longer be blamed for their problems when there’s no help in sight, Appalachia the region with the most deaths occurring from men and women fighting overseas in the war as a means to make a living and provide insurance for their families back up in the mountains. Welfare can only go so far for these Appalachian families, one little girl in this investigation even reported that there was only butter and ranch left in her family’s fridge when her mother’s food stamps ran out. These government programs are designed to assist these families in survival, but the birthing of drug-use is beginning to counter-act whatever productivity is established in that region. Vegetables, such as the brand name Green Giant, are a rare and luxurious commodity, once again a re-enforced alien ideal to urban citizens. If the availability of fruits and vegetables could be gradually increased for these heavily emaciated mountain families without the argument of incapacitating the market, then perhaps these health concerns and early aged deaths would come to a steady decline. If time permits, this green, sudsy liquid that miners and babies down heavily alike will be replaced by a more solidified green pertaining to a more solidified and hopeful future.