Twinkies are now back on supermarket shelves, and their new owner (who also owns Pabst Blue Ribbon beer) is banking that you’ll come flocking back to stock up on the iconic snack food.

While I’m sure the new company will reap a return on their investment, from my vantage point as a chiropractor I’m not convinced they’ll see the return they’re hoping for.

Lately we’ve been witnessing a slow, groundswell “shift” in how our country views — and does — health, and the story of the Twinkie illustrates the point beautifully.

In late 2012, when Hostess announced it was filing for bankruptcy, everyone groaned, “What about the Twinkie?” For as much as we’ve joked about its poor nutritional value and uncanny, ageless shelf life, we’ve grown up with these cream-filled, cylindrical sponge cakes. They’re familiar to us and have been a part of our American culture — alongside hotdogs, baseball, and apple pie.

So how does a 95-year-old company like Hostess, whose product found itself woven into the fabric of Americana, go out of business? Fingers are quick to point to the unsettled labor disputes, but if you dig deeper, you’ll find that these union arguments were merely the final nail in the coffin and unearth a more fundamental issue: the market share for Hostess products has been on the decline for some time. Sure we all love the warm-fuzzy memories of our Twinkies-past, but nostalgia alone doesn’t move product.

The public is waking up. They are waking up to the fact that you can’t live a life eating Ho Hos and Ding Dongs — and yes, Twinkies — and not expect to have consequences. They are waking up to the fact that the model of healthcare instilled into our society for the past century has not — and is not — going to fix our nation’s deteriorating health condition. Hostess did not adapt to this newfound awareness of health.

On the other hand, we see Ronald busy at the “Golden Arches” offering up healthier alternatives such as teas, smoothies, and salads amidst his tried-and-true addictive, health-robbing fare. Last I checked, besides an attempt at a smaller-portioned “Twinkie Bites” product, Hostess wasn’t busy concocting a reduced-calorie, gluten-free, organic Twinkie offering.

Why, then, would a company pony up $410 million to pedal the Twinkie and its sugary cousins? Because, quite simply, even when presented with the truth, there will always be those that cling to what they’ve known and loved — even if it slowly kills them.

The question is, will the market forces fueled by this new health consciousness shift we are experiencing be enough to truly create a “healthcare reformation?” Are we willing to abandon our old ways and habits and adopt new ideas and concepts? Or will our nation’s healthcare “reform” simply be a change-of-window-dressing-shell-game driven by the same politically-influenced and fundamentally-flawed backwards model.

Today’s healthcare model can no longer be crisis care centric. We can no longer run to a pill to reverse our poor choices, and it’s high time we ditch the “if-it-ain’t-broke-don’t-fix-it” mentality. It’s time for us to make the critical transition to living in a model that embraces and elevates lifestyle care — a model that the chiropractic profession is primed and ready to lead.

— Dr. Thomas R. Lamar is a chiropractor at Anchor Chiropractic in the Health Services Center and hosts the Internet radio program SpinalColumnRadio.com.  Lamar can be reached at (360) 297-8111.