The Politics of Obesity
by tgirsch

I've seen this coming for a while, but it's heating up:

Even fat is the stuff of politics in Washington. And with obesity a growing health problem, lawmakers, lawyers and activists are lining up the way they do for most issues: on two sides.

The left's view is that the food industry and advertisers are big bullies that practically force-feed people with gimmicks and high-calorie treats. They say Ronald McDonald is the cousin of Joe Camel.

The right's argument has been dubbed: You're fat, your fault. They say people can make their own choices about food and exercise.

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The debate has spilled over into public policy, with proposals for a junk-food tax, limits on food advertising, demands for more details on labeling and lawsuits against food manufacturers. Several states are considering limits on sweets sold in schools; Some are debating whether to force chain restaurants to list nutrition information on menus.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., recently introduced a bill that would prevent people from suing restaurants and food manufacturers for making them fat. Similar legislation has been introduced in the House.

This is a difficult issue, but that won't stop me from weighing in. Junk food taxes, however well-intentioned, would only serve to harm the less fortunate among us, making "cheap meals" (healthy or not) harder to come by. When you're scraping to get by, you don't care if you get a Bic Mac^tm or a mesclun salad with Ahi.

That said, limitations on lawsuits are never a good idea either. All that accomplishes is allowing companies to budget for the lawsuits they receive. And they may eliminate a few frivolous lawsuits at the expense of a legitimate one.

How do I fix the problem? The first step would be to outlaw marketing products to children. (I would do this across the board, not just with respect to certain things, but that's another discussion.) You want to target their parents in marketing? Fine. But targeting children directly should be verboten. Case in point:

Children especially are getting bombarded. In a typical year, some 10,000 ads are seen by children; 95 percent of those are for candy, soft drinks, fast food and sugared cereals...

As for limiting sweets (and banning junk food) in schools, I'm actually all for that one. Kids can still get fast food, candy, and chips if they want them. Putting outlets in the schools where children are a captive audience goes WAY too far.

Requiring the listing nutrition information on menus also goes too far, although only a little bit. I would require restaurants to make that information available on request (most fast-food restaurants already do this), but not clutter up the menu with all of that. I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to requiring calorie content to be listed.

The larger problem is, most people really don't care. Healthy food will never be as inexpensive, as convenient, and frankly as tasty as junk food. And being a convenience-driven society, junk food will always win that battle.

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