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Loading...Throwing Money At Obesity Will Not Solve The Problem
Thanks to money from the $10 billion Prevention and Public Health Fund, Oklahoma City residents now have new bike lanes, walking paths and an Olympic rowing complex. But will any of this do any good?
In response to the obesity epidemic overtaking his community, the Republican mayor of Oklahoma City has embraced the program funded through the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act, as Sabrina Tavernise reported in The New York Times last week.
Many experts believe that measures like these will not reduce the obesity rate all by themselves. Government will have to intervene, they argue, whether by enacting taxes on sodas, regulating marketing to children or reforming agricultural subsidies.
Of course, critics will speak of a nanny state that has no business dictating the American diet. They point to personal choice, arguing that every consumer has a right to eat whatever she wants, however it affects her health. They point to personal responsibility, arguing that the overweight and obese, who make up two-thirds of the American population, just have to learn to exercise some self-restraint and say “no.” Critics of government intervention also point to the self-correcting mechanisms of the marketplace which are supposed to induce Big Food to respond to public concern over obesity by, for example, introducing healthier products and developing its own rules for front-of-pack labeling.
On Personal Responsibility
It’s true that every consumer chooses what she wants to eat, and no one’s making her eat anything she doesn’t want to. But she’s certainly urged to buy the latest meal replacement bar through millions of dollars in advertising, greeted by it at the checkout line in a convenient to-go package and offered it at an introductory price that can’t be beat.
Ours is an obesogenic environment, one conducive to “passive overconsumption” with the availability of more and more hyperpalatable, “processed, affordable, and effectively marketed” foods every year, say the authors of one article in the Lancet’s Obesity Series. Passive overconsumption is a predictable outcome of an environment overloaded with food. Several studies have found that this excessive supply of calories is “more than sufficient” to explain the rise in obesity in America as well as in the U.K., and one epidemiologist notes that the “excessive consumption of food occurs in ways that defy personal insight or are below individual awareness.”
In order to reverse the obesity epidemic, the environment has to change. And against Big Food, only government has the reach and the resources to implement the systemic change required to promote an environment that supports rather than undermines public health.
Next: On the Right to Personal Choice
Read more: agricultural subsidies, big food, food environment, food industry, food marketing to children, government intervention, obesity, obesity epidemic, soda tax
Photo Credits: Don Hankins, Steve Snodgrass
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may
not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.
Recent Comments from Causes
hope the research proves its usefulness in helping treat asthma problems
ty.amazing :-)
Some of them Okie politicians sure know where their priorities lie and it's not with protecting the people…
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73 comments
+ add your ownPeople just need to be aware of how easy it really can be to turn your life around at any point, and how much they can benefit from a healthy diet!
Dealing with obesity is only slightly about diet and exercise, unless one is overweight due to medical reasons. We will never "cure" this "epidemic" until we focus on the underlying reasons why individuals are overweight.
Education is the answer
As with sex education, if it's not taught at home then we must all make the effort to provide schools with materials to educate our children. We can't give up on the health of our children.
We want what we want when we want it............The problem is that we've become a society that expects instant gratification, as evidenced by many of our behaviors, including eating and sexual.
This is real trouble and the government is never the answer.
We have to grow up.
One cant legalize good atitude, it's in the heads of the people.
Thanks
thanks for sharing this article
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Finally, we discuss the difficulties of fairly assessing the risks linked to EDC exposure, including developmental exposure, problems of high- and low-dose exposure, and the complexity of current chemical environments.
I'm not usually big on Power-point-type presentations, but this gives an excellent overview:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:xAvCn2IFDG4J:www.pitt.edu/~super4/39011-40001/39101.ppt+&cd=6&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca&client=firefox-a
Persistent organic pollutants and metabolic syndrome; Clinical implications
Hong Kyu Lee, M.D.
Please do at least skim over it?
The obesity epidemic is a symptom of the damage done to our metabolic systems by unregulated industry continually cutting costs/increasing profits by any means possible, costing us our health - and, incidentally, the Earth.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21054169
Annu Rev Physiol. 2011;73:135-62.
Endocrine disruptors: from endocrine to metabolic disruption.
Casals-Casas C, Desvergne B.
Source
Center for Integrative Genomics, Faculty of Biology and Medicine, University of Lausanne, Switzerland.
Abstract
Synthetic chemicals currently used in a variety of industrial and agricultural applications are leading to widespread contamination of the environment. Even though the intended uses of pesticides, plasticizers, antimicrobials, and flame retardants are beneficial, effects on human health are a global concern. These so-called endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) can disrupt hormonal balance and result in developmental and reproductive abnormalities. New in vitro, in vivo, and epidemiological studies link human EDC exposure with obesity, metabolic syndrome, and type 2 diabetes. Here we review the main chemical compounds that may contribute to metabolic disruption. We then present their demonstrated or suggested mechanisms of action with respect to nuclear receptor signaling. Finally, we discuss the difficulties of fairly assessing the risks linked to EDC exposure, including developmental exposure, problems of high- and low-dose exposure, and the complexity o
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