One glance around a shopping mall, at a children's playground—or even down at your own belly—and you realize that with each passing year, more and more Americans are dramatically changing shape.
The stats are staggering.
The number of obese adults has doubled in just 20 years, with 67 percent of the adult population overweight or obese, according to recent figures from the Centers for Disease Control.
And things appear to be getting worse. Back in 1995, when researchers started to notice the changing landscape, one doctor sounded an alarm in The Lancet, a British medical journal. After studying the rise in obesity that had occurred over the 30-year period between 1960 and 1991, Dr. John Foreyt at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston predicted that 100 percent of Americans would be overweight by the year 2230.
Upon seeing more recent data, Foreyt bumped up his projection by almost two centuries: “We’re gaining by 1 percentage point every year. Assuming that trend continues, 100 percent of the population will be overweight or obese by 2040.”
A recent report in the journal Epidemiologic Reviews suggests that this estimate is right on track. Researchers studied obesity prevalence rates from 1990 to 2006 and concluded that 75 percent of the population will be overweight, and 41 percent will be obese, by the year 2015— or by the time today’s crop of grade-school age kids get to high school.
Excerpted from MSNBC. Full text available at: health.msnbc.com
Damn, America is getting fatter by the minute. The numbers are a bit disturbing, especially given the burden that obesity will increasingly put on a an already burdened public health care system as well as the burden to obese individuals that lack health insurance. The poor are, after all, disproportionately heavy, mostly because high fat, high calorie food is now sadly cheaper than healthier foods like fruits and vegetables and lean meats and seafood. So what to do? Should the government initiate a public health campaign against obesity similar to the one used against smoking in the 1980s? Or maybe there should be class action lawsuits against McDonalds like those used against tobacco companies (actually, didn't that already happen once?).
8 comments:
First off, I wonder if there is a global trend toward this too. I know Australia has a major obesity problem, but I am not sure about the rest of the developed world.
Secondly, I know this is a major issue but I keep thinking, "Isn't it really a person's choice what to eat?" I mean given the information and the option to eat a more healthy diet, I think most people would still choose their McDelicious fast food. As a matter of fact, this is pretty much what is happening isn't it? That is not to say I am opposed to a national campaign for better health, that would be a good idea. I'm just saying I don't know if it would actually do any good.
I am not sure that lawsuits would actually do anything but line a few pockets either though... cigarette companies didn't change much and I haven't ever talked to someone who smokes who said, "Man those lawsuits made me think twice about my health." Though a lot of suppressed information did come out in the court cases. So... meh.
Anyway, I guess I would say:
National Better Health Campaign - Yeah sure.
Lawsuits - No, not really.
And when it comes down to it, your health is your decision. If you want to be overweight or obese, go ahead. That is your body - your choice.
Generally I agree and am not suggesting that the government attempt to regulate peoples' eating choices. But I always have kind of wondered why stigmatizing smokers was seen as a good thing while stigmatizing the obese has been seen as unfair. Not that I am saying we should all ridicule the obese, but the perception seems to be (perhaps appropriately) that smoking is a personal choice and so the negative health effects that result from are the smoker's fault. Plus everyone and their mother seems to think they have a responsibility to tell smokers that it will kill them so they should quit--as if smokers were generally unaware of the health effects. The point being, why is it generally acceptable to remind a smoker that smoking is an awful lifestyle choice while it is seen as inappropriate to remind obese people that eating an extra value meal and being morbidly obese will also kill them?
It might sound ridiculous, but it seems like people often feel that criticizing their weight/eating habits is out of bounds. Recently in North Carolina a woman filed a complaint against her physician because he had told her she was obese and needed to lose weight. The woman apparently took this as an inappropriate insult and so filed a complaint with the state medical border. I am sure the board rejected the complaint, and this is purely anecdotal and should be taken with a grain of salt, but I would believe that it is reflective of a general perception among Americans that being obese isn't a lifestyle choice (as smoking is) but a "condition" or the result of genetics and therefore beyond their control.
Regarding the NC woman: I didn't realize that eating moron sandwiches were so fattening. Maybe she had been super-sizing it and getting the side fucking idiocy.
The really sad thing is that it seems that a lot of Americans wake up and have big bowl of Idiot-os and then gobble down a value sized idiot meal for lunch. And all those calories add up.
Speaking as an overweight adult:
A national program against obesity is all fine and well. I think it's obviously a looming problem with grim prospects for the future.
But class action lawsuits would be absolutely out of bounds. It's the ultimate scapegoating of personal responsibility. We simply cannot stick our head in the sand and say it's McDonald's fault for making food that I like to eat. That's ridiculous. McDonald's isn't putting a drug in their food that compels me against my will to eat it... In fact, it's my will that compels me against my will to eat it. :P
In a day and age where it is simply more convenient to go through a drive-thru for dinner instead of having to spend an hour or so to preparing a more healthy meal at home, we often opt for what tastes the best as opposed to what we know we *should* eat. It's hard to look at the Wendy's menu and say "yes, I'd like a caesar salad and a baked potato please" instead of "omg, gimme that kickass looking meatsplosion that is the baconator, please!".
But ultimately, it is my choice... Unlike cigarettes, my eating a baconator doesn't make anyone else fat but me... and Wendy's doesn't intentionally add compounds to the burger to chemically addict my body to it. (And after eating a baconator, I generally don't smell attrocious.)
The whole reason that there are lawsuits against big tobacco is because they knew their product was addictive, they knew their product caused severe health problems, yet they willfully hid, even lied, about that knowledge. They were intentionally midleading the public about their product, and therefore were rightfully open to litigation.
Fast food companies, on the other hand, do no such thing. They make their food, and we eat it. There's no conspiracy... "It ain't healthy, but it sure tastes good!" and as soon as something like transfats are rejected by the public, they respond to consumer demand and retool their product to exclude them.
Cigarette makers don't have to. They know that they have the weak willed in their thrall, and don't HAVE to change their product. They can kill people all day long, and the very people they're killing will keep funneling cash right into their pockets. Every time you buy a pack of cigarettes, you're lining the pockets of an enterprise that kills somewhere around 438,000 people a year in the U.S. alone via a product that the public doesn't even need to survive.
We do, however, need food.
And it's up to us to choose what kind of foods we eat, and to live a less sedentary lifestyle to make sure we burn off the excess.
Beck said: Every time you buy a pack of cigarettes, you're lining the pockets of an enterprise that kills somewhere around 438,000 people a year in the U.S. alone via a product that the public doesn't even need to survive.
You are doing the same thing every time you swing by Wendy's. Not arguing lawsuits are the way to go, but fast food is a racket. People are stupid and weak-willed when they decide to eat a Baconator every day for lunch. The bigger issue is that obesity puts the same strain on the public health system as smoking. Heart disease, stroke, cancer, etc...all come with eating a Baconator or two a day the same way they come with a pack of cigarettes. Again, not saying law suits are the way to go, it's just kind of dumb that people demonize smoking so much but seem to think being morbidly obese is ok. If anything, and based on Beck's arguments, smokers should maybe be given more slack. They are addicted whereas fast food eaters are choosing to eat crap that isn't addictive. (But I would argue fast food probably is addictive in some way. I am sure that the Colonel puts addictive chemicals in his chicken.) Lastly, being fat doesn't hurt other people is a reasonable argument in general, but like I mentioned above it has a similar cost to the public health infrastructure. Moreover, the second hand smoke issue has been blown greatly out of proportion. The statistics that people cite to show the harm of second hand smoke were seriously manipulate to get the results they did. Speaking as a person that spends a chunk of the day running statistical analyses, I know how easy it is to get numbers to show what you want. I could get into specifics, but I'll just say that the threshold for statistical significance was doubled in order to be able to provide "evidence" that second hand smoke caused cancer and such. Now, where second hand smoke does have a seriously negative effect is in children. Children who grow up in that environment have much higher likelihoods of asthma and other health defects. Not defending smoking. It's bad. Just clarifying.
And many researchers think that the fats and sugars in fast food are quite addicting. Here's a small piece from the first article that popped up in Google:
According to Dr. Ann Kelley, rats "love the high-fat food and they eat and eat. We found there are actually brain changes that are elicited by exposure to a chronic high-fat diet." She believes that it is possible to compare the findings about rats to humans; making it very plausible that humans can become addicted to high-sugar and fatty foods.
"Those particular types of food - the fat and the sugar - are really the culprits," she said. "They're responsible for the behavioural changes that occur, the obesity and also the brain changes that look like addiction."
That's not t say there isn't debate in the scientific community over it, there is. But there is evidence to say all the people who are hitting the fast food are just as manipulated and weak-willed as those who are smokers.
And it's already been brought up here, but the cost of obesity on the health care system is enormous and keeps getting heavier (pun intended). And just like smoking this strain is more or less avoidable. Perhaps I should rethink my stance on Universal Health Coverage, being only slightly overweight and an ex-smoker... hmmmm... j/k.
But in conclusion and from my heart, I say to the "Over-Eater" the same as I say to the "Smoker" or the "Lush", I am completely in favor of your right to destroy your body anyway you see fit. Have at it! You get one life brothers and sisters, smoke 'em if you got 'em! ... or eat 'em or drink 'em as the case might be.
And don't forget, choosing fast food over a more nutritious meal at home is choosing convenience over health. It is not a necessity to eat fast food, it is a choice.
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