Is It Really Your Fault That You're Fat?

LOS ANGELES, CA--(Marketwire - Jun 3, 2011) - As Americans, we represent the fattest nation on the planet, and it's killing us.

No one knows this better than Mannie Barling, who saw the battle from both sides.

"We pride ourselves in this country for having the safest food supply in the world, but nothing could be further from the truth," said Barling, co-author of "It's Not Your Fault - Weight Gain, Obesity and Food Addiction" (www.HowToEliminatePain.com). "It is the chemical additives like MSG, dyes, high fructose corn syrup and other ingredients used in the more than 14,000 packaged foods sold in the US that made us the most obese country on Earth."

Barling served as in-house counsel to two of the first HMOs in Los Angeles, including one that treated more than 13,000 patients a month. This experience exposed him to the tragedy of obesity, but that's not his only source of experience.

"In the 1990s, I was diagnosed with malignant colon cancer, Crohn's disease, IBD, IBS, gout and arthritis, and I was given two years to live," he added. "Luckily, my wife and co-author, Ashley F. Brooks, is a nurse, and spent the better part of ten years nursing me back to health to eradicate the damage done from my daily diet of packaged foods. Packaged foods nearly killed me."

Barling and Brooks spent more than seven years researching Barling's illnesses and discovered key facts that the medical and food industries had been ignoring or hiding.

"Americans who eat fast foods as well as bottled, canned, frozen, packaged foods or even well-known diet foods are becoming chemically addicted to the food additives in processed food," he said. "This addiction is very real and the primary cause of weight gain and obesity in the U.S. The bottom line is that obesity is not your fault -- the culprit is the pre-packaged food that we have been fooled into believing is safe and healthy for us. It's not healthy for us, and, in fact, it's killing us."

About Mannie Barling & Ashley F. Brooks

Mannie Barling is a lawyer, author and businessman who spent more than thirty years practicing law in the Greater Los Angeles Area. In the 1970s, Mr. Barling served as in-house counsel to two of the first HMOs in Los Angeles, including one that treated more than 13,000 patients a month.