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Personal
responsibility not enough for weight control
June 17, 2004
Suzanne Havala Hobbs
So
you’ve been laying on the fast food by day, ice cream
by night. And you’re piling on the pounds.
We all know there’s an obesity epidemic going on. Policymakers
and researchers are working on solutions.
But listen closely to the nature of the solutions being offered.
Nearly all center on the role of individual consumers’
personal responsibility. Few solutions center on government
policy decisions that could support people’s efforts
to make healthy choices.
Some health education campaigns ostensibly aim to encourage
better food choices and healthier behaviors. But advice from
industry-backed health groups, the U.S. Department of Agriculture
and trade associations often is watered down, at the insistence
of food industry groups, into vague language that emphasizes
“balance, variety, and moderation.”
As I’ve written before, such advice is virtually meaningless
when people try to make real-world choices. (Moderation? Does
that mean buying the Big Gulp soft drink in lieu of the 44-ounce
Super Big Gulp?)
Meanwhile, McDonald’s gets a lot of PR mileage for putting
pedometers in adult Happy Meals.
Anyone looking for simple solutions to our obesity crisis
is going to be frustrated. The problem is complex. We live
with an abundance of cheap food and technologies that make
nonmandatory physical exertion a rarity in daily life.
Sure, personal responsibility plays a vital role in weight
control. But the choices we make aren’t made in a vacuum.
We’re surrounded by a challenging environment that to
a large extent is shaped by government policies.
But you’d be hard-pressed to catch a politician or food
industry lobbyist negotiating real policy changes that might
help promote weight control.
In fact, the same players now crafting obesity solutions that
target individuals can often be found behind the scenes fighting
– and winning – the bureaucratic battles to defeat
proposals for policies that might create a more health-supporting
environment.
Some examples of areas in which government policy changes
might make a real difference:
* Fatty dairy products in school meals. Cheese is the greatest
source of saturated fat in kids’ diets, contributing
to obesity and coronary artery disease. Yet the dairy industry
continues to use its considerable influence on USDA and Congress
to keep generous quantities of cheese on school menus and
to head off restrictions on the use of whole and 2 percent
milk in schools.
* Advertising targeting children. The food industry invests
$33 billion each year to promote its products, especially
fast-food, soft drinks and other high-fat, sugary junk foods,
much of it aimed at selling to children. Television ads targeting
children are restricted in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland
and other countries. The rationale: Before their teen years,
children are impressionable and not developmentally capable
of discerning when they are being sold on a product. In the
U.S., the food industry opposes such restrictions.
* Government agricultural subsidies. Billions of dollars in
subsidies support production of foods high in sugar and fat
each year, while relatively little is done to support production
of health-promoting fruits and vegetables.
It’s not difficult to understand why emphasis on personal
responsibility is so popular with policymakers, the food industry
and the health community. Compared to more far-reaching policy
changes, low-cost health education messages that put the onus
for change onto individuals are political winners. They create
the impression of action but pose little real economic threat
to industry.
But until we find the courage to address bigger policy issues,
we aren’t likely to lose much weight.
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