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Addict Nation by Velez-Mitchell Explores Cultural Addiction And How It Damages Women and the Planet

01/24/11-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
Turn on the television, and what you will likely see is a commercial for the latest gadget. Buy the new iPad 2 to replace your old iPad 1. Don’t worry, just throw that old iPad into the trash. Buy the latest phone, it does not matter that your old phone still works. One does not have to be a technophobe to realize that there are problems with the consumer model running rampant in the world, and how there is an engineered addiction supplanting common sense and usefulness. It may be hard for someone to imagine buying a cell phone and holding onto it for five years, or still using an iPod that went out of production two years ago. Women, especially in America, are the most vulnerable to this addiction which is often making people and the planet very sick.

This is the subject of Headline News host Jane Velez-Mitchell’s latest book Addict Nation (which comes out February 2011). She “believes American women are being ‘hooked’ on everything from shopping to prescription drugs. It’s making a handful of ‘pushers’ very wealthy and our planet very sick.’ But, as she says, there is hope.

From the press release:

Americans are being lured into addiction. And what we’re hooked on isn’t necessarily illegal or even hard to come by. Prescription medications are making us high. Fast food is making us fat. The Internet keeps us constantly distracted with everything from gambling to porn, to compulsive social networking. Television seduces us into buying more stuff we don’t need while we drown in debt. Massive profits fill the pockets of a handful of “pushers” at the expense of everyone else.

In her new book Addict Nation-An Intervention for America (HCI Books, Feb. 2011), bestselling author Jane Velez-Mitchell says, “It’s time to take our power back!” She believes Americans have unwittingly supported a number of dysfunctional business practices that threaten our health and the earth.

The ravages of the over consumption of sugars including high fructose corn syrup, which is in foods that most people would not expect, to the toxicity of cosmetics which women are often pushed to wear every day are part of what Velez-Mitchell delves into, and especially how they damage women in the United States. Sugar, itself, has been shown to be highly addictive.

Within Addict Nation, Velez-Mitchell writes very frankly “Frankly, if we hope to survive as a species, the future better be female . . . or at least centered on matriarchal values and respect for women and girls. This is where American women come in. We are the most powerful nation on earth, and about half of us are female. As Americans who pride ourselves on helping others, we need to get our own “house in order” so that we may carry the message to others.”

Cultural addictions is something that most people are loathe to actually tackle as a subject these days, though there were several writers in the middle to end of the last century, who attacked this problem head on. Velez-Mitchell aims to tackle this problem head on, including her own blueprint on how to change the world. As she puts it “this is an intervention!”

While the Earth will continue on, what humans do in the near future will determine whether or not humans will continue on.

Jane Velez-Mitchell is openly lesbian. She was born on 29 September 1955. Her work as an author and journalist has netted her several awards, and she often comments on high-profile cases for networks ranging from CNN to E!. She also has dedicated her work to animal protection as an advocate. She is a vegan and a recovering alcoholic who has more than fifteen years of sobriety under her belt.

Here is the promotional video:

LGR hopes to have a review of the book for the site when it becomes available for review.