How NBG Membership Speaks to the "Twinkie Defense" (draft)
Nor does it take a rocket scientist to understand that eating junk food contributes to the overweight epidemic and hospitalization nightmare that America faces. This as the violence that runs rampant in America is not far removed from what we eat. In the late 1970’s, a San Francisco policeman killed the San Francisco mayor and a prominent gay activist. His lawyers successfully invoked what was called the “Twinkie defense” in proving he had diminished capacity when he shot and killed these two people. In a court of law, his lawyers were able to prove his violence was the result of all the junk food he ate. He served five years in prison for these murders.
In the years since the Twinkie defense, study after study has proven that a diet heavy in sugar contributes to aggressive behavior in both adults and children. As such then, the individual that moves about under their own power on a bicycle does not feel drawn to the sugary food and drink that junk food purveyors provide. And as they opt for fruits, nuts, vegetables, sugar free breads and those foods that will sustain them for longer distances, they are also speaking to the gun violence problem that is plaguing our Nation. It is this that our PR firm will point to when they give even more reasons as to why NBG membership is important.As we desire more basic nutrition, the merchants of fast food and junk food will no longer tempt us from every corner.
When using our bodies to get places demands that we eat closer to the source, we place less strain on the only world we know. By being forced to take care of our own personal ecologies in such a way, when each of us does so, on a collective basis, we heal the planet. As the nation becomes healthier and healthier, as the complicated diseases from eating garbage food become less and less, it will be understood that it is pedaling a bicycle that makes this possible. And our National Bicycle Greenway will be seen as the organization that will have orchestrated this clean up.