Muse – Obesity Today

I saw an interesting special yesterday that took a new spin on the ‘obesity epidemic’ that has gripped the US as of late. Most tend to focus on the food makers who make the fatty foods we eat and the advertisers whose job it is to make us want to eat it. This one looked back to a curious possible source at the very core of US food production. Farm subsidies.

I was skeptical at first, before it was explained. When placed against the pyriamid model of the four food groups, there is a vast gulf in how much subsidies go to support and make meat cheap, for example, in comparison to the growth of fruits and vegetables in general. Save for corn which is a national staple, used in many of the fatty processed foods that we consume(high fructose corn syrup).

It might be a bit far to stretch, but it leads me to wonder if it might help to have subsidies reworked to focus on more healthy products. There are more factors than the subsidies at work, of course. Even with that set right(assuming there is a ‘right’ to set it to), American society is set into the rut of consumption and abundance.

Even with the factors that work against us, we Americans have low willpower when it comes to food. We eat the worst possible things, myself included, and the feeling of victimization is fed by lawyers who take on and raise cases against food companies and fast food restaurants. No, I’m not ignoring the positive side effects that did occur from them. I acknowledge that legal action can well intimidate a company into being more responsible. But it can also lead the consumer to grow even more sedentary. A victory gives the message that they aren’t to blame at all for their obesity or other problems related tot heir health and eating habits. It’s the big bad food companies and their canny advertises who seduce you into their chocolaty grasp.

Right and wrong. They’re a big motivator, but it’s the consumer who decides to get up and walk out to the store or walk out to McDonalds and order up whatever greasy, sweet, fattening thing they eat. The problem is a mix of human weakness and advertising savvy. We need to prod the food companies into offering more healthy foods, but we also need to train ourselves to treat our bodies better. It isn’t easy, but it can be done.

The best place to start is with parent and their kids. The kids, as is often reflected, are the future. And many kids have been growing up with more pounds than is healthy to carry and/or poor eating habits that are encouraged by less than healthy school lunches in some cases. I can remember my days of eating the strange, rectangular blocks of cheese pizza and other such reprehensible meals of questionable quality.

As much as advertisers need to cease marketing directly to children(like we don’t let kids sign contracts, because they don’t understand how things work yet), parents need to work with their kids on getting them more active. More outdoor activities and less video games. More healthy snacks like fruit rather than processed, fruit flavored things.

Another aspect when it comes to children and their habits is the nag factor. We all know what this is. When kids start to nag, ‘mommy buy this’ or daddy, I want it’. The constant nagging and prodding that tears at the frayed edges of parental sanity until you give him. Letting your kids decide what you’ll buy for them, on the basis of ceasing their constant badgering.

The nag factor is something advertisers rely on, a result of their marketing towards kids. Bombard a kid with enough images and he’ll decide he wants something based on the most visually appealing thing that is shown, no matter what the nutritional content is. Then, when they see that unmistakably colored box, they home in on it and the nag starts.

How do you deal with the nag factor? You don’t give in, of course. The simplest and, perhaps, hardest solution. But the best, because when you give in, it only reinforces the power that the child has over the parent. When the relationship must be opposite that. Parents dictate what their children consume, not the other way around.

So what do we have here, now? To fight obesity we could adjust farm subsidies. We could wrangle advertises into being more responsible. Pressure the food companies to tone it down on the unhealthy processed foods and start where it begins, making sure our kids don’t eat any old nasty crap the television tells them to. And, last but not least, exercise for one and all.

The answers are sitting right there. Clear solutions that, if even a few of them are taken, could pretty much wipe out the epidemic. But it isn’t so easy.. when a virus is ravaging the body, the path is clear. You need a cure that will eradicate the virulent invaders. But when the disease is a society that has built itself on the foundation of consumption and abundance.. how do you eradicate that? It’s like a virus the body doesn’t want to give up. In some cases, it might not be able to, as who knows what sort of economic upheaval some of these solutions might have on food companies and farmers? Yes, the solutions are obvious, but not all of them are so easy. Yet even the easy ones are undone. Exercise is something anyone can get. Children have dominion over their kids, yet many remain lead about by the nose when it comes to food or are simply not aware that the sugar blasted choco puffs are actually quite bad for their kids.

What is an expanding nation to do?

Resources

US food subsidies & obesity

Politics of obesity

Childhood obesity

The ‘Nag Factor’ Nets $10B in Sales

Dealing With ‘The Nag Factor’