Is the anti-smoking movement taking steam away from the fight against obesity?

Great Debates
1

My girlfriend and I took my younger sister to Holiday World in Santa Claus, IN for her birthday yesterday. I was struck by two things: first of all, the whole park is now smoke-free with the exception of one small smoking area. Secondly, it seemed to me that at least seventy per cent of the people there were grossly overweight.

In Splashin’ Safari, the water park portion of Holiday World, it became all the more evident that there was a huge majority of overweight and obese people. In fact, I was terminally grossed out and put off by it. Everywhere I looked, there were people with giant guts spilling out of bathing suits, women with collossal saggy tits hanging over their stomachs, gigantic lumpy asses - and I mean, everywhere. People were eating whole pizzas, giant hot dogs and cakes, cookies, elephant ears and fried food with great gusto. And the fat folks’ children, of course, were just as fat as their parents.

I started to wonder about whether smoking is really the problem with peoples’ health. I have heard that in Europe, there is much more smoking, but much less obesity. I have also heard that there is less cancer and heart disease in Europe in general. I don’t know about everyone else, but give me a water park filled with thin smokers any day over a water park filled with obese nonsmokers.

Now, I’m not suggesting that all these fat folks were non-smokers. In fact, I would estimate that obesity is greater among smokers than among non-smokers, because those who care about their health and about being in shape are unlikely to smoke. But there definitely seems to be more of an aggressive campaign to target smoking, and eliminate smoking from everywhere, than there is to fight the obesity which is a massive problem in the United States.

I’m not saying that obesity and smoking can’t both be fought at once. But there are ads all over the place for fatty foods and drinks, whereas cigarette ads have been highly regulated. And there are countless anti-smoking PSAs and ads in magazines, targeted at both children and adults.

But I have not seen ONE SINGLE AD targeting obesity. I’m not talking about profit-driven “get in shape!” ads sponsored by gyms, clothing companies, or whatever. I mean whole foundations, like “thetruth.com” dedicated to trying to convince people that being a fatass is bad for your health. I mean ads, with scary-looking effects and grim somber colors, touting statistics about obesity and heart disease and diabetes, like they do for tobacco. In fact, all I ever see are ads pushing us to EAT, EAT, EAT!

I personally think that obesity is a bigger problem in America than smoking and it pisses me off that it doesn’t get the same kind of aggressive pursuit from the health foundations and the health advocates that cigarette smoking does. I have to wonder if we have been concentrating too much on trying to make cigarettes extinct, and ignored the huge problem of obesity.

2

One reason it doesn’t, IMO, is that second-hand smoke bothers a lot of people physically. Second-hand obesity rarely does (only when, for instance, you are squished into your airline seat between two people who take up more than their own seat). Hence the war.

3

Hmm. Lost the quote. I intended to quote back the last paragraph of the OP.

4

I dunno, but I think corporate America has reached a consensus that the tobacco industry is one sector that might as well be thrown to the wolves. I’d like to see those ads skewering the “big tobacco companies” retooled for some more difficult and powerful and even more socially destructive targets – like the oil companies, the consolidated media companies, the finance and banking companies, the agribiz companies, and the whole campaign-financing system – but what are the odds?

5

It’s kind of a majority rules kind of thing. Two thirds of Americans are overweight, and one third are obese. That’s too many people to pick on.

If two thirds of Americans were smokers, you’d probably see less anti-smoking sentiment. Well, maybe.

But it’s risky for one third of the population to tell the other two thirds to “drop the donut and exercise, already!”

6

Also the costs to society from smoking are far, far greater than the costs to society from obesity, per the World Health Organization in 2003.

7

Sorry, I believe that it’s the actual health risks, in terms of excess morbidity and mortality, which are far, far higher from smoking. I am not sure the costs to society have been accurately estimated.

8

I’m sure you’d like to sue all of those targets, and negotiate a huge transfer of wealth from their shareholders to the plaintiffs’ bar.

Thankfully, however, there is (as you yourself point out) little chance of that being successful, so my hard-earned retirement savings are safe.

9

Not at all. Unlike with the tobacco companies, there’s no tort as such to sue them over. The point of the commercials would be to call attention to the companies’ political power and the amount of damage they do in the world.

10

Well theres not much denial that overeating is bad for you, most people know it.

The thing is you cant really do a ton of the things that worked for smoking to reduce it. Scary pictures on a donut dont really work too well as a concept, banning advertising for food gets trickier because defining 'good and ‘bad’ food gets awfully tricky, etc etc.

‘Tobbaco’ is just a lot easier to pick on because you have to eat food after all, while theres no ‘safe’ level of smoking. And its a lot harder to argue the ‘overeating effects us too’ line, as its effects are more indirect than something like passive smoking, so the moral imperative to impose some of the above kinds of things become a lot weaker too.

Otara

11

One thing is always effective: shame. I’m not suggesting that it’d be a good thing to do but social shame is a very powerful motivator. (It’s why the majority of women shave their legs and armpitspits.)

12

You think theres a real shortage of shame for being overweight?

Id say if that was going to be effective we wouldnt even be seeing it as an epidemic in the first place.

Otara

13

Thank you for correcting yourself. A case could be made that the relatively early and relatively quick deaths of smokers actually save society financially.

14

I see your point, but it’s not a targeted campaign. What overweight people face on a daily basis is random malice.

Again, I’m not saying it’s a good thing to do, but if there were ad campaigns about how shameful it is to be fat at the frequency that you see anti-smoking campaigns and the like, I think you probably would see a societal change.

Human beings like to discriminate and look down on others. It takes very little encouragement to bring it out.

15

It’s not the problem. It’s a serious problem, and one that creates health hazards for non-smokers as well.

Morbid obesity poses serious health hazards and we will no doubt be faced with more anti-obesity campaigns in the future. Certainly fast-food outlets have come under increasing pressure to offer healthier food and downsize portions.

What the OP regards as visual pollution (having fat people to look at) is much less bothersome to me than heightened air pollution from secondhand smoke.

The OP has overtones of a typical non-sequiturish argument against secondhand smoke regulation - "Look over there - you should be paying attention to that problem (air pollution in general, car crash fatalities, global warming etc.) instead.

Concerns about smoking/secondhand smoke and obesity are not mutually exclusive.

16

Having worked in public health clinics in North West Philadelphia, Obesity seemed to cause many more problems than smoking. Sure, smoking causes lung cancer, emphysema, ect and then you die. But obesity leads to all kinds of nasty things, diabetes in particular. In terms of quality of life, Im not sure Id choose rotting in a wheel chair, my feet having been amputated because of poor circulation/compromised wound healing while my significant other had to change my diapers. Of course in real life I would choose thin & cancer free.

17

I have posted previously on how my father ate himself to death. Dead at 57, and the last few years were a lingering, ever-progressing, terrible death.

Unfortunately, I don’t think any public service campaign could have changed that. My father was very smart. He was a physician and knew all about the effects of obesity on the human body. I don’t think shame would have worked. He already put a ton of shame on himself.

(Interestingly, he had smoked for 20+ years, and after he quit in his early 40s he became stringently anti-tobacco. You know the type–fanning the air and exaggerated coughing if a smoker happened to walk by.)

I don’t know what the solution is. but the problem is real. Every time I go out to the mall, grocery store, restaraunt, etc… the parade of morbidly obese people is staggering. I ask myself, how can so many people let themselves get that way? Isn’t there a point (200 lbs? 300 lbs?) where you see yourself in the mirror and just stop??? How can there be so many 400-pound people waddling around?

18

I just wanted to add that I find the vendetta against smoking by non-smokers to be absolutely ridiculous…a “tyranny of the majority”, just like foxhunting in the Uk, but I wont begin about that.

19

Heh. I take it you’re neither a nonsmoker nor a fox?

Sailboat

20

The anti-smoking movement is WHY I’m overweight. Put on 10 pounds when I stopped smoking… both times.

Best shape of my life is when I was drinking like a fish and smoking a pack a day… (and I was 15 years younger)