This Teen Took on a $10 Trillion Industry. We Might All Be Healthier Because of Him.

When Bryce Martinez started feeling an aching around his heart, he thought it might be an asthma attack. But at the school nurse’s office, his blood pressure was found to be so high that he was rushed to the emergency room. There, doctors diagnosed him with Type 2 diabetes and fatty liver disease.

Bryce, then 16, was bewildered. He had developed obesity early in childhood, but until that chest pain, he had no other sign anything was wrong with his health. He hadn’t even realized that kids could get Type 2 diabetes.

Back home, he searched online for information about his illnesses, devouring news articles and videos. He learned that American children live in dysfunctional food environments where the least healthy options tend to be the most affordable and accessible. That as parents took on more working hours, there was less time for cooking than in previous generations. That food companies filled the gap with convenient, ultraprocessed food containing industrially manipulated ingredients that you wouldn’t find in home cooking. That these foods are often full of salt, sugar, fat and additives. Bryce was shocked that regulators didn’t vet all food additives for health and safety, and that companies could slap healthy labels on nutrient-bankrupt junk.