Obesity epidemic calls for measures like tobacco war

JWR ^ | 4-18-05 | Morton Kondracke

[FlyLow]

Since 1964, thanks to taxes, lawsuits, social pressure and prevention programs, the percentage of Americans who smoke has dropped from 65 percent to 25 percent. It's time to tackle obesity just as aggressively.

Libertarians, the fast-food industry and advocates for the obese object to "nanny-statism" and discriminatory incentives to fight the obesity epidemic. But in all likelihood, we'll need negative as well as positive pressure to slim America back down to a healthy size.

Lawsuits like the one pending against McDonald's aren't my preferred solution — they'll likely benefit trial lawyers more than consumers — but taxes on the fat content of food would be useful, and so would higher insurance premiums for those who are overweight.

The life insurance industry does impose higher premiums for the obese, but not as large as it does for smokers. And the health insurance industry generally provides lower premiums on a limited basis only as a reward for participation in diet-and-exercise programs.

[Capriole]

i don't see the epidemic! I look throughout the school at the kids and only see a handful of over weight ones. I look at the people on the street and they look about the same as they always did! Maybe its not that people are getting fatter, but society lowered the bar due to the media and hollywood and what THEIR version of the PERFECT weight is.

What you see on the street depends on what street you live on. Weight is closely tied to social class: you will very, very rarely see a fat person who is a member of the upper class (by which I mean, not necessarily rich, but someone who comes from an old family). I can think of only one person of my acquaintance who is part of an old American family and is fat. The middle class has more of a weight problem, as long days at the office let them put on ten or twenty pounds, but they also have the money to join a gym or the inclination to run or bike. It's in the lower-middle class and among poor people that you see the huge people. Average weights tend to be lower on the West Coast, where good weather encourages people to be outside and exercise constantly, and higher in the Midwest, where a tradition of eating huge meals around the farmhouse table has continued long after the farmhouse vanished and rotten weather makes it tough to exercise outdoors during much of the year.

Where I live the fat people are lower class, either white or Hispanic. The Hispanic kids tend to be fat far more often than their Hispanic parents.

[DumpsterDiver]

Changing the guidelines for who is or is not overweight also helped create "fatter" people.

From the article: In 1991, only 12 percent of American adults were considered obese, according to U.S. government data. By 2001, that was up to nearly 21 percent, a 75 percent increase. Other studies indicate that 65 percent of the population is overweight and 30 percent is obese.

If those numbers are right, only 35 percent of adults are at or below a healthy weight. And 15 percent of children are overweight, double the number 30 years ago.

American Fitness: Great Weight Debate... that 29 million more Americans can now be called unhealthy due to new weight guidelines issued in June, 1998 by the National Institute of Health (NIH).

Other articles.

[monday]

"one would have to be an idiot, which I assume Kondracke is"

No need to assume. Kondracke is a world class monument to idiocy. His idiocy is a stone cold, blinking, black hole which sucks logic and reason out of the poor souls who have the misfortune of stumbling across it. His idiocy is a blinding force of nature which destroys intellect the way tornadoes destroy trailer parks.

[Gabz]

Notice, he doesn't tell what guidelines were changed in that time period so that the large percentage was counted in the later study.

EXACTLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They did it to us - when they decided not enough smokers were quitting they laid on the guilt trip of SHS.

Now they have changed the standards for what is considered overweight and obese. Both you and my husband would be considered overweight using the new BMI standards - and I know bloody well neither of you is overweight.

[Serb5150]

I know just what you're talking about. I'm currently working in a department of six people. Three are of normal weight. One is overweight, two are obese.

[WV Mountain Mama]

I don't want to be involved in other people's lives. My first sentence was a little joke. It is easy to blame fast food for obestiy, but it is hardly the only source of poor diet choices. I don't care if peole are fat, but I don't want to hear them complain about their diabetes, high blood pressure and cost of healthcare, which should be more. I don't care if people smoke, but they better not complain when they get sick. Everyone's first instinct is to blame someone else and sue because they made bad choices. If peole are fat, 99% of the time it is their own fault. They want to blame McDonalds and fast food, but if someone other than you would look in their cart, one might see that they make the choice to be fat everyday. I do not want to be taxed because someone else eats too much (crap or otherwise) and their only exercise is finding the remote. And sorry if it bugs me when a person is paying with food stamps and they are buying junk food.

[Smokin' Joe]

Well, it's a nice rationalization, but the only reason people are overweight is because they ate more calories than they burned.

Another reason is that the formula is just that ridiculous 'Twiggy' chart reduced to a formula. It makes no allowance for muscle mass, just assumes you are heavy with fat.

[Gabz]

And many times, I am willing to bet that we are helping to pay for most of the crap!

That annoys me more than anything.

Don't get me wrong, I buy my fair share of snack foods - but I also buy fresh produce and very few frozen or otherwise prepared "meals."

Some time back I got a smart aleck remark from a woman when I was buying a pack of cigarettes in a convenience store about unhealthy habits.........this woman had to have outweighed me by 150 pounds.....and she was none too thrilled when I commented that beer and cheetos (what she was buying) were not exactly health food.

[Mama Shawna]

You notice that too! I'll probably get flamed for this, but when I see someone in the POTATO chip aisle, leaning on their cart for SUPPORT, I just want to walk up to them, slap all that flab, and say: THE LAST THING YOU NEED IS A BAG OF CHIPS! THE VEGETABLES ARE OVER THERE--->

Also, another bugaboo...whenever I see someone with 'dread locks', I want to knock them down and shave their heads! Can't help but think there's something crawling in there...

Flame away...
Mama

[WV Mountain Mama]

My hubby was a tobacco user for 22 years. His dad thought it was so funny when he tried his dip. The only reason he quit is because he bought a on/of motorcycle and I told him he had to get life insurance. It would have cost him 2 1/2 times more if he continued to chew! Thankfully, he hates to pay more for anything and after a VERY IRRITABLE week, he quit, he didn't gain weight because he was riding a lot. He did switch to a non nicotine chew for a year and this past January he quit that. His cousin just quit smoking and went from weighing 185 pounds to 225.

[Smokin' Joe]

It takes a special type of busybody to care what kind of junk food strangers are buying at the grocery store.

Coming soon to a Gubmint job near you...We already have swarms of professional busybodies in social services. This is no great leap.

[monday]

"You don't see the epidemic? Go to the airport. "

Societies go through changes over time. In third world countries almost no one is fat because almost no one gets enough to eat. The few rich people who do are almost all fat though. It was the same in the US at the turn of the century. Being fat meant you were rich.

After a generation or two of being rich however, people lose the weight which is why you don't see too many over weight rich people in the US today, and why even the middle class is slimming down.

In the US today even the poorest people are rich by much of the worlds standards. They are also fat, but they won't be fat forever. Just as the upper and middle class lost, or are losing weight, after a generation or two, the new generation of fatties will lose weight eventually too.

It isn't something the government needs to fix. The government needs to worry about spending fewer tax dollars so they don't make us all poor again.

[yankeedame]

Libertarians, the fast-food industry,grown-up men and women who object to be treated as if they were Forrest Gump, people who wonder why these same people who want it ok to smoke pot but not eat a pot pie, people who love to cook, people who love to grill/BBQ, people who appreciate fine foods, and advocates for the obese (Which, apparently, is about 99% of us) object to "nanny-statism"

and discriminatory incentives to fight the obesity epidemic.
Ggrrr....And object to know-it-alls who have a sound-bite grasp of the English language. The word is not epidemic it's endemic,a condition or state of being commonly found among a group of people and/or in a particular section of an area, i.e. Obesity is endemic among welfare precipitants.

An epidemic is the outbreak of an contagious disease like yellow fever, small pox, or malaria. As far as I know, chubbiness is not something you just catch from a sneeze, a bug bite, or sewage laden water.

.... pressure to slim America back down to a healthy size.
And this day and age was when....?

[TX Bluebonnet]

So will restaurants will have eating and non-eating sections?

[Serb5150]

I notice what other people put in their carts. Sometimes I look to get ideas of what to make for dinner, and sometimes I look just to see what the ratio of junk food to the individual's extra weight is. Call me a busybody if you like, but I'm tired of being told that every person carrying extra weight is somehow suffering from a thyroid problem, or a hormonal imbalance, or some other sort of hogwash. I'm not saying people don't suffer from these things, because I know it does happen. But I hate it when an overweight person tries to BS me into believing their diet has nothing to do with it, when I can clearly see otherwise for myself.

[Gabz]

Most folks I know who have stopped smoking have gained weight - but I think it has more to do with not breaking the hand to mouth habit than anything else.

I rarely bother with cigarettes if I'm curled up with a good book - but can wipe out a can of peanuts or a bag of chips without even realizing it.

Of course I can get away with that - I'm 5'10" and 115 pounds :)

[Paved Paradise]

What I don't get is all the obese smokers!!!!!!

[Sam Cree]

"... Kondracke is a world class monument to idiocy. His idiocy is a stone cold, blinking, black hole which sucks logic and reason out of the poor souls who have the misfortune of stumbling across it. His idiocy is a blinding force of nature which destroys intellect the way tornadoes destroy trailer parks."

That's actually pretty eloquent! If you aren't already writing professionally, I think you should consider it, IMO, if you have an interest.

[Conspiracy Guy]

I was attacked by a Big Mac and Large fry.

[monday]

"I just want to walk up to them, slap all that flab, and say: THE LAST THING YOU NEED IS A BAG OF CHIPS! THE VEGETABLES ARE OVER THERE---> "

Some people are ugly on the outside, but some, are ugly on the inside.