Incidence and Prevalence of Type 2 Diabetes in America: Is There Culpability in the Food Industry?

Abstract

In this paper, the authors introduce the topic of type 2 diabetes, offering definitions as well as discussing its major symptoms and causes. We also analyze trends in diagnoses over time, and most significantly, examine how the conventional food system plays a role in the etiology of the medical condition. The topic is of interest to criminology and criminal justice, we argue, because of moral and potential legal culpability in the food industry. When placed in the context of state-corporate crime, outcomes of the conventional food system begin to look a lot like crimes. That is, global corporations produce, process, market, and sell the foods that are killing more humans than nearly anything else on the planet, including drugs and crime. State agencies created and organized to protect consumers not only fail to stop this, but also enable and encourage the production and consumption of unhealthy foods.