Excuse my low postcount–I’m a longtime lurker, infrequent poster. I know this is a precursor to excommunication on some other boards, so please excuse any ignorance on my part–I come before you all humbly and with a simple query.
As you are all no doubt aware, obesity has become a glaring problem in modern American society. Statistics that I recall offhand indicate that approximately one in three Americans is obese (Body Mass Index greater than 30). Additionally, 60% of Americans are now classified as overweight (BMI 25-30). These figures are higher than at any other time in history, and yet are still rising. The detrimental effects of obesity on health are indisputable–all accounts name increased heart disease, late-onset diabetes, and shortened lifespan as potential results of an obese lifestyle.
My question is, what can be done? I am simply baffled by the dilemna. Should we regulate what people can eat? No, this represents a restriction of personal freedom. Is education the answer? No, I feel that anti-drug educational programs are counterproductive (witness the failure of the D.A.R.E. program) and that similar attempts in the realm of obesity may be analgous. Is mandatory physical education in K-12 education the answer? Perhaps. Illinois is, I believe, the only state that requires phyiscal education in the statewide lower education curriculua, and yet its obesity rates are still relatively high with respect to the rest of the nation. Should we demonize the so-called “fat industry” as we have demonized the cigarette industry? I don’t know, I am heavily in favor of personal responsibility and have a hard time identifying the boundaries between the “fat industry” and the regular food service industry.
So if you were in a position to throw large amounts of money at the problem, where would you begin?
(A cursory search of past threads has yielded repeated error messages, so my apologies if this has been discussed at length.)
Start with funding schools to have healthy options available and not the cheaper fatty ones. Awfully silly to have a health class discussing healthy food choices and then soda, fries, pizza, etc, as the lunch choices. But it costs more to have real and tasty veggies instead of catsup.
Encourage riding bikes to work. Maybe businesses can get a tax credit for having programs that encourage bicycling to work. Give tax credits towards the purchase of adult human powered vehicles (HPVs) such as the Go-one or the Aerorider which are covered for weather protection and with electric assist can easily maintain a speed of 25 mph for most commuting distances. Raise gas taxes to encourage their use and have bike lanes everywhere. (Have I been killed yet?) Give tax credits to help underwrite health club membership if regular use can be documented. I have no objection to taxing clearly poor nutritional choice foods (eg soda pop, french fries, double bacon cheese burgers).
This is my hangup. I honestly think this policy is slowly strangling the cigarette industry–all for the better, I might add–but I simply don’t see it as viable. People WANT to eat this stuff, and its their body–is it my right to limit their access to it?
This is kind of how I feel about drug legalization… (sigh)
Maybe we can tax it until it’s on par with healthy food (since healthy food seems to be more expensive to produce than unhealthy food). But then we’re just screwing over those who can’t pay for food in the first place… and hunger in America is its own issue…
The best thing that could be done is to increase health education in school. When I was going through school the recommended amount of food they had you eating could easily allow you to accumulate calories of 3000 or more. People simply don’t know how to eat and exercise right.
I’d throw large amounts of money at myself, then catch them.
What? No good?
Alright, alright.
Increase taxes so that the government prescribes what every American should eat via food stamps. If you buy more than X grams of fat or Y calories or Z ounces of “luxury foods” per month for your household, you have to pay for it out of pocket.
On one hand, we could virtually guarantee that everyone gets fed. Of course this solution potentially bites for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the incredibly damaging effect such gov’t interference would likely have over food producers.
When come back next time, comrades, we fix health care… we fix health care real good.
[Thing 1]: We have this problem with socioeconomic inequity! How do we solve it?
[Thing 2]: COMMUNISM!
I mean yeah, but realistically we can’t screw over the food producers of America, just as we can’t eliminate interpersonal financial competition. So is there an effective first step? I mean are there kids who honestly don’t know that eating lots of fatty foods and not exercising makes you gain weight?
Here’s an idea I’ve been kicking around–what if one were to force some legislation that set maximum levels of certain nutritional elements (sugar, fat, carbohydrates) in a single package of food? So yeah, you could buy a 30 pound bag of, say, rice (because the entire package would have less than a certain amount of those nutritional elements), but there’d only be 6 or so Oreos in a package (because that’s all that would fit under the guidelines). If companies wanted to continue selling 3 liter bottles of Arterial Death Soda, they’d have to make it healthier. Otherwise, they’d have to split it into a whole bunch of bite-size packages, making it a lot more inconvenient for the consumer to take a whole lot of it home.
Or would people just walk out with a whole lot of little packages and get pissed off at the government?
In my mind, this is a major obstacle to a healthy society–we sell this trash in bulk and people just sit down with a package and wipe it out in one sitting… what if we made that single package a lot healthier or at the very least, a lot smaller?
I’m not in favor of more laws, but nameless does have a point. You used to be able to buy 12 oz. cans of soda but all many convenience stores now have is 16 or 20 oz. bottles. People used to be satisfied with 12 oz. - but do we save half of these big bottles for later, or throw it out? Not usually.
BTW, whatever happened to bottles of unsweetened tea? I miss them a lot. And club soda or seltzer - you hardly ever see these in convenience stores or vending machines either.
Yea, in case I wasn’t clear, I’m not at all serious about that proposal.
In truth, I don’t think you can ever keep people from harming themselves if they are intent on doing so. Required education isn’t a bad idea, but face it–the people who care are going to seek out the info, and those who don’t care will ignore the advice anyway. Curtailing liberty might work in theory but who really wants the government telling them what they can eat? Not I.
It’s not a horrible idea and might work for certain things. But I suspect you’re right about the “whole lot of little packages”… not to mention there’d be all the extra refuse going into the waste bins.
There’s been a lot of talk lately about the effect of adding corn or corn byproducts to everything, and using corn to feed cattle. I think that moving away from this would do a lot of good.
I don’t think that legislation is the way to go here. Do you realize how complex this kind of system would be? Would we go with taxes or straight regulation. Plus with all of the fast food industry lobbyists chances are the system would be flawed beyond belief before it could even be implemented.
I think what we need to do is look at the root cause of the issue. What has changed in the last 35 years causing us as a nation to become overweight?
Some of my theories as to what has led to this.
Portion sizes have grown larger over the past twenty years.
We work longer hours than we used to causing us to have less time to prepare healthier meals. It is easier just to stop by McDs and buy something.
Soda sizes have become incredibly large.
Because we work longer hours, we have less time to exercise.
We have become an increasingly suburban nation. For many of us, we can’t walk to the store anymore, causing us to rely more and more on our cars. In sum, we drive everywhere. I recall seeing a study that said that more suburban your location, the more likely you were to be overweight. Most suburbs from what I’ve seen don’t have sidewalks, so even if you wanted to walk the mile and a half to the store, you don’t have anywhere to walk.
From what I’ve heard many school districts have cut recess. That means that the one part of the day when many kids were guaranteed some exercise is gone.
I am not so sure that we realize just how bad some of our food choices actually are. I always knew that fast food was bad for me, but until a year or two ago, I didn’t know how bad it was.
I am not sure that there is anything that we can do about this situation. I’ve heard the obesity is occurring more and more in other developed nations as well. Perhaps this is just one of those evils that we can’t get away from.
Besides, on a personal level, we all have the ability to watch what we eat and exercise appropriately. While not everyone is meant to be skinny, most of us can reach a weight that is healthy for us.
Just to be precise, I am aware that there are some who can’t exercise for medical reasons, and there are some whom have medical conditions preventing them from losing weight. My comments refer to the general population.
In particular, restaurant portions have grown huge. I get all sorts of weird looks when I order the smallest steak, and then ask for a doggie bag later. Ten ounces of meat is what I’m supposed to eat over TWO DAYS, not in ONE MEAL.
When I spent a week in the hospital, I was amazed at the portion sizes, but they were all correct for my diet. I DID ask my doctor for permission to have another piece of fruit each day (and she gave me permission, and I had my husband bring me some fruit). Amazingly, I was able to live on this diet. I was a bit hungry, but I managed.
Supersizing meals is a good thing for active teenage boys, who seem to be able to burn 5000 Calories a day just by breathing. For the rest of us, it’s not a good idea.
It’s DANGEROUS to go walking. Not only do we not have good sidewalks, but there’s so many crazies in my neighborhood that I wouldn’t dream of walking to my local grocery store (which is about 1/12 mile away from me) even if I was physically able to. Ten years or so ago, I used to walk to the library (also about a tenth of a mile from my home) and back, with a string bag of books. I wouldn’t do it today, even if I were capable of doing so, because the neighborhood has deteriorated even further.
There’s no law that says you have to go walking outside, Lynn. You can join a gym and walk there.
But yeah, it’s dangerous to walk 'round these parts too.
One way to end the obesity epidemic is to stop feeding a load of BS to those who are overweight as to how they can lose the weight. Low fat. Low carb. Low protein. High fat/high carb/high protein. No sugar. Counting points. Vegetarian. Gastric bypass. Any moron can publish a diet book and fleece fat people out of millions of bucks because they are desparate.
Nothing will change until people get it through their heads that there is no such thing as a “bad” food, everything is okay in moderation, and that it’s okay to eat what you want if you are actually physically hungry and quit when you’re full. This is how people who are naturally thin eat. Fat people are not a different species. Eat like thin people do long enough, and you’ll be one.
As much as I agree that everyone should exercise, I don’t see biking to work as a viable option for most people and believe that any attempt at personal transportation vehicles that go 25 MPH will be a huge bust. Biking certainly is not going to happen in the middle of the winter in most parts of the country or in the middle of the summer in another large portion of the country.
I think everyone is focusing too much on what the government should do and too little on what personal choices can be changed and what kind of examples we set for our children. It starts with individuals and in the home. And it starts early in life. I have a 16 month old daughter and do not want her to become one of the millions of obese children. You have to start early by not getting into the habit of taking them to McDonalds or other fast food places. You have to choose not to rely on chicken McNuggets and french fries when they are young or they expect it when they are older. This sounds almost silly when you are talking about a 16 month old, but it really does happen and it is a real problem. We try and watch carefully what we give her. I am certainly no health food nut, but I still look at labels even now for her and try to avoid the highly processed, high fat, high sugar content foods.
In addition, I've tried to change my own eating habits to set an example. Again, I am not perfect, but I've cut back on soft drinks and cut most of the fast food from my diet. Children see what parents eat and follow their example. I've also added more fish and less red meat to my diet. What children see parents eat becomes the expected or normal diet, so you have to set a good example. In a similar manner, making exercise a regular part of the day is another good example to set.
Cutting back on portions is a huge step in the right direction also. Its not just that AMericans eat bad food, they eat entirely too much of it and most of no sense of what a constitutes a healthy portion.
As for what the government can and should do, I can think of two things. First, improve school nutrition by, first of all, getting rid of soft drink machines (this requires better school funding so they don't require the big money sent their way by the soft drink companies) and improving school lunches, which typically are pitiful. No more allowing outside companies into the school to provide lunches. Again, you need better funding. And the lunches that are provided should be much healthier.
Second, no more fast food advertising to kids during cartoons or on any network predominantly advertising to kids. This may sound far fetched, but they have done it with alcohol and tobacco. Its reached the point where fast food is just as big a threat to the health of children.
I don't think more health education in school or more PE time is going to help in the long run. If you want to improve PE, you can start with making about truly exercising instead of adding more years of useless things like archery or badminton. Make kids jog. jump rope, bike, whatever. Make them create an exercise program for themselves and grade them on reasonable goals they can achieve in improving their fitness. From what I remember about PE, there was too much memorizing rules about games that I either already knew how to play or will never play again (we had to do gymnastics....the first and only time I ever encountered a set of parallel bars was in gym) and too little time spent actually improving my physical fitness. More required useless classes like that are not going to help.
