Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
Challenging the Obesity System
Last month, to great fanfare, First Lady Michelle Obama announced her Let's Move initiative to combat childhood obesity.
Tuesday's signing of the historic health reform bill assures that more children, once obese, will actually be able to get treatment for it. The bad news is how ineffective and expensive most obesity treatment actually is. America currently spends $147 billion a year on obesity-related illness.
What's been missing historically is any recognition that the biggest bang for our taxpayer dollars is to prevent kids from getting overweight and obese in the first place. And that's why the White House initiative is so important. It starts the process of making kids' food in schools and communities healthier.
But ultimately, we need to put a spotlight on the fact that our national obesity epidemic is but a single symptom of a more serious illness: our unhealthy food system.
In order to prescribe healthier food, we must rethink the entire system, from the farm to our children's mouths. We wrote about the need for this healthier food system in this month's Health Affairs, which was devoted to child obesity.
Researchers now link obesity with diets rich in added sugars, fats, and refined grains, and of course in the snacks, sweets, beverages and fast foods in which they are so prominent. According to U.S. Department of Agriculture data, in 2007 Americans' average daily calorie intake was 400 calories higher than in 1985, and 600 calories higher than in 1970.
Suprising to many is that the ultimate source of so many of these added calories in the American food supply can be traced to two crops: corn (sweeteners) and soybeans (fats and oils).
But it shouldn't be surprising. For the past 35 years, U.S. farm policy has incentivized the production of a few commodity crops (like corn and soybeans), and the calories that come from them.
In the early 20th century through the 1950s, production of these crops was seen as essential to addressing under-nutrition in the U.S., and throughout the world. U.S. farmers responded by dramatically increasing yields -- up to 600 times higher now than in 1920.
At the same time, depression-era farm programs recognized that overproduction of these crops risked the prices for them plunging below what farmers needed to make a living, or rising above what consumers could afford. As a result, these programs managed supply of these commodities, to keep prices relatively stable, and to keep farmers in business and making money.
But from 1965 through 1996, these supply management programs were gradually dismantled. U.S. farm policy today is designed instead to encourage farmers to grow as much as possible of these few commodity crops, utilizing several different types of subsidies, crop insurance and taxpayer-supported research. Quite rationally, farmers have followed these policy signals, making significant capital investments (new combines, irrigation systems, etc.) to produce these crops.
As a cheap calorie policy, U.S. farm policy has been a success. Foods high in fats, sugars and calories, such as cooking oils, snacks, fast foods and sugared sodas, are some of the cheapest foods in the American diet. But for public health, U.S. farm policy's focus on a few commodities is outdated.
We know, for example, that diets rich in fruits and vegetables can help manage weight and lower risks for cancer and other chronic diseases, especially when they replace calorie-dense, nutrient-poor foods. Yet fewer than one in 10 Americans meet the levels of fruits and vegetable consumption recommended under the latest calorie-specific, healthy eating guidelines. And farm policy historically has overlooked incentives for fruit and vegetable production.
So how do we get farm policy and public health on the same page?
As a start, the executive branch needs to pull together disparate health and agriculture communities around food policy. There needs to be a Healthy Foods Commission -- and it has to be independent. Such a commission, comprised of non-governmental public health, agriculture and food system experts, could work closely with the Administration's Task Force on Childhood Obesity to ensure upstream and downstream food system goals are mutually reinforcing.
Second, America's farmers have got to be key partners in this healthier food system. If the nation is serious about making fruits, vegetables and other healthy foods more accessible, policymakers need to offer at least as much research, financial and other support to growers of these foods as has been offered for decades to growers of commodity crops.
Specific policies to accomplish this might include: reinstating programs to manage oversupply of commodity crops and calories; support for current farmers transitioning from commodity to other crop production; new farmer recruitment, financing and training; an agriculture research agenda that includes a more diverse mix of crops and farming methods; and allowing farmers growing fruit and vegetable to participate in commodity programs of the farm bill.
Third, we need to raise the standards for the National School Lunch and Breakfast programs. These programs should be required to meet the USDA's healthy eating guidelines and this should be codified in the Child Nutrition Act, expected to be voted on soon by Congress.
Today, the quality of the calories produced by U.S. agriculture may be at least as important as their quantity. For us to make long-lasting progress on obesity, we must heal the symptom's source: an unhealthy food system. Let's move!
22 Comments so far
Show AllWatch 'Food Inc' (http://www.foodincmovie.com/).
All the mass produced stuff we get now is crap - the electronics made in China, new cars - right down to the food we eat.
Since it does not appear that citizens want to revolt - perhaps consumers will...
Watching Food Inc could be the catalyst.
Ever think that there is stuff in the food to help people NOT want to revolt but instead, sit down to another multi-hour session of good old tv.
Sadly, the majority of our citizens love the crap that is killing them. They fear that the "food police" will try to take it from them. If you think the healthcare system is bad and overburdened now, just wait a few years as this generation of fatties ages.
America is a disaster when it comes to food. Couldn't a kid be required to take a real piece of fruit, such as an apple or banana? No, I guess not.
Our food system removes the fiber from grains to produce white flour, which has been bleached, and which then has the vitamins put back in, which had been removed in the process of making white flour. Now, since there is no fiber, there are products that sell for $15 dollars to add fiber to back into the American diet to alleviate constipation.
Natural unrefined food has a potassium to sodium ratio of 18:1; the American diet has just the reverse. And this leads to high blood pressure. Not to worry. Big pharma can supply all the pills to lower the bp caused by a diet high in sodium.
How about sugar? One can of soda contains about 40 grams of sugar, which is the equivalent of about 10 feet of sugar cane. Boy, I'd love to eat 10 feet of sugar cane in ten minutes. How about diabetes, anyone. Not to worry. You can inject yourself with insulin or take a bunch of other new drugs to take care of this too.
Eat all the steak you want? Never mind that the average human only needs 4 ozs of protein a day. Eat red meat three times a day and increase your risk of heart attack and cancer. No need to worry. Have a stint put in or triple bypass or get some chemo.
And who cares about drinking plain old water when one can load up on wine, coffee, tea, soda, sweetened water, energy drinks, anything but real water.
No wonder America is obese. And it always falls on the consumer. If you didn't eat what the corporate pigs made they wouldn't sell it. They wouldn't load foods up with salt and sugar to get people addicted to their product; and your kids shouldn't pay attention to their adds, which try to get babies addicted as soon as they can relate to the world. It is the consumer who is at fault. The corporations can do whatever they want; let the buyer beware.
It is more than food folks, it is also our auto addiction!
When people all walk a few feet to sit or be driven in their cars to park a few feet from their final destination it is
no wonder we have ballooning obesity!
If you go to Europe or Japan or other countries where people
do not drive everywhere you find much healthier people with less obesity.
A number of studies have shown that even US cities such as
New York where many people do not have cars and so take mass transit or walk or bike have a less obese, healthier
population.
Yet this morning a car addicted Brooklyn politician complained
about "discrimination against cars" for the modest efforts of
NYC's transportation planner to install safe bike lanes for
bicyclists as the vast predominance of Brooklyn's transit real estate is allotted to cars and parking!
God forbid he should WALK or RIDE a BIKE!
Here in New Jersey our very obese Governor has just axed
public transit $300 Million while not cutting one penny from cars. Of course Gov Chris Cristie owns one of the largest
SUVs to get around...
Good comment. Having been raised in NYC and used the public transporation for decades, I am surprised at how trapped suburbanites are by their cars. You cannot even buy a quart of milk (skim or otherwise) without getting into the car. I even know of one young, fit person who got in her car to drive to the mailbox at the end of the driveway.
Making it safer to bicycle, providing more exercise in schools, including distinct paths for walking along all roads would help build health. It would also provide more freedom for people who cannot afford a car or one car per family member or who are below the driving age.
Joe
So once again we as a society will play the "blame game" when it comes to our inability to make rational, healthy decisions. What a load of BS. I have lived in this society for over 60 years and the first place I learned about nutrition was at the family dinner table. Those are the lessons I have carried throughout my life and adhere to today. The problem is not corporate/government subsidized food as much as it's total abdication of familial/personal responsibility to learn the facts and act accordingly. When parents and/or caretakers of children take the TIME to educate themselves and their charges about healthy eating habits then the obesity epidemic will wane and with it the overproduction of unhealthy, sugar-based foodstuffs.
Wake up people and quit whining for big brother to tell you what you can or should eat. Educate yourselves and your children even though you may have to take an hour out of your "busy" day to do it. Anything less is nothing more than another chapter in the book of blame.
I see what you're saying, but why should it be all on the consumer's back. If you go to your local grocer %80 of what they offer is inedible. We don't need education;I know what's good to eat, but I would like better choices at the local market, and I don't have the the ability where I'm at to do my own farming. Why do we have to pay inordinate prices for good food? We do need to blame corporate conglomerates that continually bombard the public with bad food. They target youngsters on purpose to get them addicted through commericials. Is that right? Why should it behoove us to take all the responsibility? You've said you've been around 60 sixty so odd years. What about crisco and hydrogenation-that has clogged so many arteries since 1911 that it must be responsible for 100s of thousands of bypasses. Yet Proctor and Gamble has had to take no accountability for a harmful product that they said was safe.
what about plastic bags at the market; if corporations weren't allowed to use them in the first place there would be no harm to the environment! Come on now-you really can be believe what you are saying. What about kids who are very poor; what help do they have? Corporate responsibility is as mandatory as individual responsibilty. Come down off your high horse.
If you go back to your previous comment you will find the question has already been answered: "if you didn't eat what the corporate pigs make they wouldn't sell it."
This won't happen overnight and it can't be done by only one person, but we didn't get here overnight either. I'm not saying that corporate farming and government bears no responsibility for the state we are in but to sit back and expect them to change anytime soon is naive beyond belief. We each have to do our part educate our children and if enough of us stand together, change will come. In the meantime those who can, must step up and grow their own and help out those who can't. I freely give my homegrown produce to people I know who can't grow their own. If everyone does the same then we can start a movement away from crappy food, send a message and begin to start a change. Until then nothing is accomplished by howling for help from the very entity who's survival depends upon your demise.
Who says I'm not angry? But how can you begin to label the government as the cause when you mention a lack of competition for the "fast food supply"? Bring your own healthy snacks; don't look always to buy something quick on the street.
When it comes to de-funding PE how about you teach your own children the benefit of unstructured, unregulated, unmandated daily exercise as a part of daily living? You blame it all on someone else when the buck starts and stops with your own individual actions; or lack thereof.
It is hilarious that you want to rant about Evil Big Government, and taking individual responsibility, while at the same time, in the same post, try to defend Big Government funding and subsidising of various food corporations.
Easy, stop eating and drinking carbs.
It's hardly "easy", but you're right in your recommendation. It's impossible to avoid all carbs, though, unless you're a non-vegetarian willing to subsist on an Eskimo-style diet of meat and fat.
This guy is a "religious" nutcase. I'm surprised Minnesota put him on the faculty.
He rails against soy, but the only sources of complete, low-carb protein for a vegetarian are soy and whey. The only source for a vegan is soy.
He touts fruits and vegetables, but fruit especially is just as toxic as sugar for anyone with a blood-glucose problem, and many vegetables are nearly as bad.
He doesn't mention the role of stress in creating excess cortisol, a hormone known for increasing dangerous central-body obesity. The fact that we're being forced to live at a high-pressure pace with insecurity at every hand is a guaranteed cortisol and depression pump. Couple that with the telly as a distraction, and living space laid out such that in many places it's *dangerous* not to travel by car (the nearest grocery is a kilometer away along a busy highway with a 50mph limit. It's possible to cycle there and back, but it's neither comfortable nor safe.)
It's discouraging, the number of "experts" whose only real expertise seems to be self-promotion.
How well I know. But for weight loss and improvement of the blood lipids and the whole physiological system, cutting carbs, drinking water(or unsweetened tea or coffee)and eating like an eskimo(protein and good fats - no trans fats), a decent excercise program, maybe vitamin and mineral supplements and there is no better way to good health and weight loss.
Then when the weight is back under control and the physiological body is running at top notch speed, then one can return to the carb binges.
I was into chapter 13 of Gary Taubes book 'Good Calories, Bad Calories' when this David Wallinga article blossomed into this site shouting the need to eat more healthy crops and most likely reduce the fat intake because as we, the the people, all know that 'eating fats makes one fat'( really is the biggest frikin lie imposed upon the 'unsuspecting' public) then I know this wallinga is going nowhere and proves how subverted, just like the dumbstream media is subverted, that the nutritional course the carb industry dictates for this country, and is deadlier than a pit full of poisonous snakes. Because bona fide research has time and again shown the detriment to health by increasing caloric intake by increasing carb consumption and leaving out the essential fats humans, as the king of the hill at the top of the food chain, needs for good health, but the health 'masters' just won't bend away from giving the real news on proper nutrition as the carb lobby makes sure they won't.
I have also read both books by Drs. Michael and Mary Eades which makes sense when the physiological processes are explained and HEY, I do like eating like an eskimo and especially after I have binged on carbs and added extra fat and retained water from the insulin that converts most every thing to fat, be it sugar, fat or alcohol and makes the kidneys hold on to sodium and water. Just look at people's ankles or wrists to see how swollen they are from consuming too much of those 'healthy' crops. I know I'll drop back into eating more of them than is good for me, but carbs, any carbs turn into sugar in body when consumed and most especially those refined 'white powders', flour, starch and fructose which pretty much has NOTHING to do with fruits, and they are addictive.
But never believe that the government, the financial sector, the corporations that deal in the carb industry haven't been subverted by 'control fraud' and lobbying just as the dumbstream media has been.
Everything in balance. Poor people do not have enough access to fresh and affordable fruits and vegetables. And I agree that beans are a good food.
Why are there so many doctinaire views about food? A variety of fresh, mostly plant based, minimally processed foods, adapted to individual physiology and calorie requirements is still a valid eating recipe. Problem is that this general approach is extinguished by several factors:
1. The power of factory farming
2. The expense of fresh food over processed and preserved food
3. Lack of choice in poor neighborhoods
4. Convenience over quality as a choice in school food programs to save on staff and preparation
5. Families' unwillingness to cook from scratch - perhaps schedules and fatigue or perhaps laziness and bad habits
And then there is culture. We are advertising victims. I see immigrant families shopping at the supermarket. In general, they choose foods that are less processed than the American families. At the workplace, foreign born workers generally bring home made food for lunch and warm it in the microwave.
And I agree that stress and depression contribute to overeating and fat deposits. We are so insecure, both personally and in our feelings about social issues. Wouldn't it be nice to wake up in the morning and be secure in our jobs and homes, proud of our country's role in the world, ready to face the day with a sense of purpose and joy. Oh well. I think I need a Twinkie.
Joe
I am no nutritionist, and I am not a vegan, but I seem to recall that there are many sources of protein available to vegans. Soy is but one, and it would seem that we humans would be able to thrive on other sources.
Here's an article that may be illuminating-- not that I am an expert, as I am at pains to point out.
www.vrg.org/nutrition/protein.htm
One really needs to consider how humans, who are top of the food chain, evolved by hunting to obtain most of their nutrition of which fat is most important because contrary to what too many people want others to believe fat does not make people fat. And being at the top of the food chain does not mean that human bodies require carbs as the major source of nutrition, humans became top of the food chain because intelligence allowed them to kill any animal for their nutritional needs and any 'gathering' of carbs was incidental so to speak but definitely not the major source of nutrition.
I don't have the time to copy a whole book out or even recite all the poignant information but the Drs. Michael and Mary Eades book 'Protein Power LifePlan' is and excellent source of information about the nutritional needs of humans and why. And you or anyone don't have to be an expert on nutrition to understand it as it does an excellent job detailing the different things that happen when eating the foods from the REAL major food groups, Fats, Carbohydrates and Protein.
Gary Taubes book 'Good Carbs, Bad Carbs' details information about how no matter how many studies have proven and been accepted as to the detrimental effect that comes from eating lots of carbs have, the 'leaders' of our nations 'nutritional plans' always fall back to the harmful 'more carbs very few fats and some protein'. And time and again when it has been proven and accepted that that brew just never proves to provide optimum health, somehow those people 'mandating' high carbs, low fats and some protein still opt for the 'high carb, low fat & some protein' way to eat and you can really read subversion here and conspiracy just like the mainstream median is subverted from a conspiracy to do so, and of all the reasons why, the most prominent could be the high profit margin in manufacturing 'packaged' food, which for me is another lesson in allowing corporate control of human's food.
One last thing, here is a link to a study done on the high fat, high protein and really NO CARB diet:
http://www.biblelife.org/stefansson1.htm
You'll have to copy and paste it.
It's true there are many sources available to vegans --as long as they don't also have that nifty little genetic condition that creates the deformed insulin response and thus T2 diabetes. People who are totally Europoid genetically have the best chance of escaping it. People who inherit from certain subsets of the aboriginal-American population have almost no chance of escaping it (the O'odham, who live in the area that crosses the Arizona/Mexico border, are in dire straits because of it). People who inherit from Africoid groups seem to have about a fifty-fifty chance.
Those who do have it can't safely eat carbohydrates in any quantity, which definitely limits a veg or vegan diet!! Rice, beans, maize/corn, tatties, breads and starch sources of any kind -- none of them can be safely used for everyday food. It makes life quite difficult.
Don't you think that brown rice and other whole grains are a valid part of a human diet?
Provided that the amount of calories is consistent with activity level.
Joe
Give me Convenience or give me Death! -Dead Kennedys
The intake of calories is only one half of the obesity equation. A few hundred calories more wouldn't be that big of a deal if it weren't for the shockingly sedentary lifestyles of average Americans. Teddy Roosevelt would be terrified that most Americans are too fat to hike a trail in one of his signature National Parks.
The slide into the "metabolic syndrome" has been a long one. It's been down hill all the way since 1980. Automobile addiction has to be the most significant of the factors leading to Americans' physical decline. Great stretches of suburbia are not merely indifferent to alternate transportation, they are down right hostile! The psychological addiction to labor saving has reached its zenith. Advertising has reached its ultimate goal, its Nirvana.
Kill Your Television! as the bumper stickers used to say. Why do you think they call it PROGRAMMING? The best seller list at Amazon reads like a who's who of carnival show barkers on weight loss fad diets. Most Americans have given up reading though. It's just not as Convenient as the Plug In Drug!