Fat Dude Nation
According to a government report from a couple weeks ago, obesity is on its way to being a bigger killer than smoking.
More Americans soon will be dying of obesity than from smoking if current trends persist, which would make being fat the nation’s No. 1 cause of preventable death, the government says.A poor diet and physical inactivity caused 400,000 deaths in 2000, a 33 percent jump over 1990, said a study released Tuesday by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Tobacco-related deaths in the same period climbed by less than 9 percent to 435,000 as the gap between the two narrowed substantially. At this rate, obesity will claim the top spot, the report said.
“Our worst fears were confirmed,” said Dr. Julie Gerberding, the CDC’s director and an author of the study.
What makes this worse is the fact that cultural trends are likely to make this issue a lot worse before it gets better.
One big obstacle here is that obesity is such an emotionally charged subject that the public sees this more of an issue of vanity than a serious health epidemic. Nobody likes hearing that they’re fat, so we’re stuck with a situation in which (for example) Bush makes a big deal out of steroid use in the State of the Union but doesn’t utter a word about this crisis. Instead of actually having a serious debate about the root causes of this problem, negative stereotypes about overweight people being lazy and stupid thrive.
The natural result of this immaturity is that we’ve got an abundance of fad diets and miracle cures. Luckily, the FTC is starting to go after these snake oil salesmen :
Regulators sued the QVC home shopping channel on Wednesday, charging that it made deceptive claims about weight-loss products sold on the air.The complaint from the Federal Trade Commission accused QVC of false advertising of “For Women Only” weight-loss products such as zero-fat and zero-carb pills. It also alleged unsubstantiated claims about Lite Bites “fat fighting bars” and other weight loss or energy-boosting products.
“We’re seeking substantial civil penalties in the millions of dollars,” said Joni Lupovitz, assistant director for enforcement at the FTC’s bureau of consumer protection.
The FTC says QVC violated a June 2000 order barring the company from making misleading claims about dietary supplements.
Well, that’s a good start, but there’s so much more that needs to be done to better educate the public about how to maintain a healthy lifestyle. For example, we can start by ending the myths that salads are always healthy or that carbs are poisonous.
Of course, like many issues, this one is a multi-headed hydra. Even if we solved one of the root causes to this problem, we still have other factors to deal with. Here’s another head of the overweight beast (via andrewsullivan.com) :
“I don’t want the government telling me what to eat either. But I do think there’s one thing the government ought to do in this area, and that is to eliminate farm subsidies. Farm subsidies lower the price of corn, raise the price of sugar, and thus encourage the overproduction of corn sweeteners and processed corn which results in the paradox that it is far cheaper to eat high calorie junk food than it is to eat fresh food. There are all sorts of other good free market reasons for the government to eliminate farm subsidies, not to mention the distributionalist concern that most of their benefits accrue to very wealthy corporations. But if processed corn were sold at its fair market value, instead of at the subsidized price, and if we didn’t have such a glut of corn, maybe the cost of “super-sizing” could go up a little bit, and some people might decide to go on a diet. Since there are plenty of reasons to eliminate farm subsidies anyway, it’s certainly worth a try.”
So, it seems to me that the rise in obesity is the natural result of many other problems we face from our country’s decline into corporatism to income disparity to lack of education to the explosion of false and misleading advertising to our society’s gradual shift away from active lifestyles.
It’s a damn shame that politicians are too chickenshit to say anything about this. If we can have a war on poverty or drugs, can’t we have a war on fat as well? Granted, those “wars” have done a lot more harm than good, but it would be nice to at least have the issue addressed on a national level (since it’s a national problem and all).
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how about free healthcare for all, so that people go to the doctor for regular checkups so that their fat asses will hear from somebody with a degree, told right to their face, “get on your bike, jackass, or you will die.”
Comment by josh — March 24, 2004 @ 3:59 pm
That would go a long way towards limiting the Medicare costs due to obesity related illnesses as well, since it’s much cheaper to catch this kinda stuff early. Then again, universal healthcare would be socialism and we can’t have that :
Comment by greg — March 24, 2004 @ 4:06 pm
you know how strongly i feel about all this stuff… my whole life revolves around my vegan lifestyle… i don’t even know where to begin… i’m glad you posted on this issue.
Comment by tom — March 24, 2004 @ 5:42 pm
I’m definately in favor of universal healthcare, but have you ever heard of a doctor telling someone “get on your bike, jackass, or you will die”? From what I’ve seen, a doctor may issue a vague warning to lose weight, but the only meassage that gets through to the average patient is that they don’t need to, as long as the doctor prescribes a bunch of pills to keep the resulting high cholesterol, blood pressure and diabetes under control. Even doctors don’t seem to appreciate how serious of a threat this is, so how can you expect the public to?
Comment by Mona — March 24, 2004 @ 9:30 pm
healthy isn’t profitable.
Comment by tom — March 25, 2004 @ 12:56 am
People don’t want government to tell them how to live but they sure want government to pay for the consequences of an unhealthy lifestyle. Oral Roberts addressed obesity years ago but was roundly criticized for it. My daughter will be taking PE (master’s level) there before she graduates. If right wingers & evangelicals were skinny they would attack obesity as a moral issue but they are as fat as the godless sinners so it remains off limits.
Comment by Becky — March 25, 2004 @ 6:32 am
As a nation we think we have all the answers. Having all the answers takes the challenge out of life. Without challenges there are no achievements. We slip into a torpor and neglect our bodies and our spirits.
Being right is not all it’s cracked up to be.
Comment by Stephen — March 25, 2004 @ 7:30 am
becky, you are so right. i let my own circumstances cloud my post. in january i went to the doctor and was told myblood pressure was through the roof (140 over 110) and i weighed 269 lbs (at 6′3″).
i quit drinking, stop having bean and cheese burritos for lunch everyday, went from vegitarian to almost exclusivly vegan and started waking up an hour earlier every day to bike for 45min before work. in 9 weeks i’ve lost 22 lbs and according to the bloodpressure machine at the pharmacy i’m down to 130 over 90.
but i forgot, until you posted, that the doctor didn’t tell me to do ANY of that. he gave me his card for his private practice (this was at a clinic) and told me to come in and we could talk about what drugs he could perscribe! i told him i didnt want drugs and asked him what changes i could make in my lifestyle and he suggested mabey to cut down down drinking, but then emphasised again to call him.
so i took it as, “get on your bike or die,” but that was justme hearing what i wanted to hear, not what was actually said.
Comment by josh — March 25, 2004 @ 8:24 am
I am all for universal healthcare. But, one would think that Healthcare providers might be jumping at a chance to lower the overall obesity level of this country. Aren’t they the ones who actually end up paying for our “fat asses” in the long run?
…or is that why my rates keep going up and up and up….?
How about massive healthcare cost rebates for healthy living? More so than the “hit the gym 200 times a year and we knock off 10 bucks”?
If trends continue, a healthy vs. non-healthy feud is inevitable in this country.
Comment by Chris — March 25, 2004 @ 9:12 am
“How about massive healthcare cost rebates for healthy living? More so than the “hit the gym 200 times a year and we knock off 10 bucks”? ”
yeah- i’ve got insurance that i’ve been paying for a couple of years- and i haven’t been to a doctor in 3 years. i’m pretty much always healthy other than the occasional cold. i should get a rebate on my insurance!
Comment by tom — March 25, 2004 @ 11:12 am