Could alcohol-regulation policies tame U.S. obesity epidemic?

NewsWorks ^ | August 24, 2012 | Taunya English

[Altariel]

What if candy stores were closed on Sundays? What if you needed a license to open a doughnut shop?

As America's weight problem gets bigger, some health researchers say instead of relying on individual willpower alone, it may be time for some new community-level policies.

Deborah Cohen, a physician and public health researcher with the RAND Corporation, suggests that some of the policies we use to control alcohol consumption could help beat back obesity.

"People realized this a couple hundred years ago, that alcohol was a problem," Cohen said. "So they developed all kinds of regulations to make it less convenient and reduce the odds that people will drink all the time and get drunk."

Perhaps now it's time to rein in our easy access to food, Cohen said.

"Choices and decision making are influenced by the context," she said. "It's the environment that really determines our behavior and we just don't appreciate that enough."

Shaping the environment to discourage overeating could include warning labels for foods high in fat and sugar, or maybe restrictions on where in the grocery store foods are displayed to curb impulse buying.

There could be unintended consequences, warns Jeff Stier, an analyst with the National Center for Public Policy Research.

Ushering in another Prohibition?

"I don't want to sound extreme, but these are Prohibition-style interventions. I mean do we really need to create a black market for burgers and fries?" Stier said.

"I think we need to teach young people how to enjoy fun foods responsibly, not to teach people that fun foods are bad," Stier said.

Cohen said education is not enough.

"What we underestimate is the power of food, of it being there and easily accessible to trigger our desires and cravings," she said.

Stier acknowledges the obesity problem but says some people are crying "obesity emergency" to justify the roll-out of untested laws and taxes.

He reviewed Cohen's analysis, which appears in the journal Preventing Chronic Diseases.

"I think we have to be clear this was not a scientific study, this was kind of a mind exercise, and in her mind these types of interventions would be a good idea," Stier said.

When asked the effectiveness of the control policies to fight obesity, Cohen said, "We have to start trying them and see if they work or not."

Cohen said one of the most promising ideas is to standardize serving sizes so consumers can better gauge the calories they are consuming.

For example, Cohen says she likes New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's proposal to ban the sale of large-sized sugary drinks. About 60 percent of that city's residents oppose the plan, according to a New York Times poll released this week.

[Brookhaven]

What if they enacted a regulation and nobody obeyed it?

(The modern version of the left’s “what if they gave a war and nobody came?”)

[Billthedrill]

Oh, great idea! Let’s put the people who have exercised such admirable restraint with respect to federal spending in charge of caloric intake! What could possibly go wrong?

[Little Bill]

That was one of my favorites, it had some input from the Campbell crowd.

[LambSlave]

From the headline I thought excessive drinking was fueling our national obesity epidemic.

[napscoordinator]

I feel so sorry for my Grandchildren (not born yet)...oldest child is 14....the way this country is going, I can just imagine the limits that will be on them for everything. It definitely won’t be the free country of today. I bet food will be rationed (for their own good), mandatory physical fitness for everyone in the mornings....A weight control program where everyone is weighed and taxed according to their weight...the higher the weight, the higher the tax. I know some here will think that is crazy, but I just see it coming. Hopefully I will be dead by then.

[brytlea]

Actually yes, we have one in our mall, bins of candy (jelly bellys you can buy each flavor separately!). But I think most people buy their candy at Walmart or Target etc. However, during the Blue Law era, where we lived, they couldn’t sell alcohol (well, I can’t recall the exact details now, it’s been so long ago) in grocery stores on Sunday either. Maybe they would do that for candy. It’s all silly anyway. Just stop subsidizing people’s bad choices, and then who cares. If they can afford their own bad choices, let them go for it.

[brytlea]

Well, that might not be true. The body may not metabolize them the same way:
http://consumerist.com/2012/01/study-says-sugar-hfcs-not-as-identical-as-some-would-have-you-believe.html

Of course, you can look through studies that say different things, so who knows for sure. I do know I won’t use it myself, but then again, I rarely use cane sugar either.

We should all probably use a lot less sweetener period. I know I can hardly stand how sweet store bought goodies are and rarely eat them. When I do I’m always sorry.

[txrefugee]

How about a Nanny Tax? Every time someone opens their pie hole telling others what to eat, they must pay a substantial tax. The funds gathered could go into Medicare, because fat people may have more medical bills later in life,

[Wuli]

“Deborah Cohen, a physician and public health researcher with the RAND Corporation, suggests that some of the policies we use to control alcohol consumption could help beat back obesity.”

We regulate the sale of alcoholic beveridges, and do very little to control actual consumption of them, except on the fringes.

People in the United States have very little problem obtaining the amount of aclcoholic beveridges they wish to consume. The assumption to the contrary in the Rand study is wrong.

[Wuli]

the woman is a Nazi (whether she admits it or not)

one could say “our ‘weight’ problem is none of your ffing business”

the maximum permissible role of “public health” in this issue is information

the rest is up to everyone within their Liberty

[aruanan]

Could alcohol-regulation policies tame U.S. obesity epidemic?

Encourage people to smoke. That will have three effects:

1. it will tame the U.S. obesity problem,

2. it will result in a LOT of money being collected in SS and other taxes throughout the productive life of the smoker, but not have to be paid back since the shortened life span of a smoker is usually due to death during retirement earlier than non-smokers, so that smokers, along with black males, will be net contributors to, but not recipients of, the SS program.

3. it will raise a crap-load of tax revenue in a way that can't be done with taxes on food, which would be indiscriminate. A tax on tobacco would target exactly those who use it, not those who don't.

So this way we're shifting one set of illnesses toward another but later in life. This keeps a higher level of tax-revenue generating going over a longer period of time (including the tobacco taxes after retirement until the statistically earlier deaths due to lung cancer and emphysema), reduces the pay out of Social Security, and reduces the total amount of food eaten (which increases food supply).

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

I’ve got it! Let’s have a major tax on:

Physicians and public health researchers with the RAND Corporation!

A big, thick tax right off the top of their incomes, along with other “researchers” and other such scum, who propose obnoxious laws that take away the rights and liberties of other people!

[Sequoyah101]

It may be volume of sugar, I read that the average consumption is over 41 lbs of HFCS per person per year. I only know I feel a lot better when I avoid it and drink soda made with cane sugar and that is occasional.

I really don’t like sweet things all that much. I did prefer the old Coke with less sweetener.

I also know that HFCS is protected by tariffs against cane sugar.