obesity and politics

this month’s american psychological society observer has a fantastic satirical article by paul rozin about the anti-obesity movement’s use of government action. it's short and worth a read. the article precedes the observer’s feature on the obesity "epidemic".

the latter article cites quantity of food consumed for much of america's heft, and surprisingly points to the government as part of the cause. subsidies, the article explains, prompted discovery of that diet evil high fructose corn syrup, whose use is blamed for much of america's weight gain. subsidies also prompt farmers to overproduce, and

"You sell the food by sweetening it, by offering it in larger portions, and by promoting it very heavily," [Kelly] Brownell explained

the government has been trying for years to make food affordable for lower-income sectors, but they may have inadvertently caused a health condition that is now considered the main cause of disability and death.

arguments for and against government intervention in weight control are featured, including portion size regulation and a junk food tax. rozin comes to the rescue in the end:

Better, he said, "to develop strategies in which the food industry's interest is the interest of public health," as happened when consumers demanded low-fat and "low-carb" foods: The industry rapidly obliged.

"They want to make money," Rozin said. "We need to make that serve the interests of public health. We're in a peculiar situation now, where food companies that try to reduce the American food size put themselves at a competitive disadvantage. Here's our situation: We have all this really good, highly dense food, and it's all over the place, and it's cheap. And we have no cultural restraint."

While Rozin conceded it's "probably a bad idea" to promote sugar snacks, "I don't like the idea too much of government saying what you can advertise, unless it's clearly harmful. The question is what choices you make. We need to set up a world more like the French have - one in which it is easier to walk and harder to snack or to stuff yourself. I don't have a simple solution, but I don't think legislation is the way to go."

such words are rarely strung together in psychology.

reference: rozin, paul. "a history of eating." observer, 18:1 and hebert, richard. "the weight is over." observer, 18:1