Free to Choose Obesity?

[HuckleB]

Free to Choose Obesity?

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/08/opinion/08krugman.html?hp

"...

In public, the industry's companies proclaim themselves good guys, committed to healthier eating. Meanwhile, they outsource the campaigns against medical researchers and the dissemination of crude anti-anti-obesity propaganda to industry-financed advocacy groups like the Center for Consumer Freedom.

More broadly, the ideological landscape has changed drastically since the 1960's. (That change in the landscape also has a lot to do with corporate financing of advocacy groups, but that's a tale for another article.) In today's America, proposals to do something about rising obesity rates must contend with a public predisposed to believe that the market is always right and that the government always screws things up.

You can see these predispositions at work in an article printed last month in Amber Waves, a magazine published by the Department of Agriculture. The article is titled "Obesity Policy and the Law of Unintended Consequences," suggesting that government efforts to combat obesity are likely to be counterproductive. But the authors don't actually provide any examples of how that might happen.

And the authors suggest, without quite asserting it, that because people freely choose obesity in a free market, it must be a good thing.

..."

[HuckleB]

1. The Food Industry Empire Strikes Back

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/07/business/07food.html

[HuckleB]

2. Obesity Epidemic’s Heavy Costs

Obesity Epidemic’s Heavy Costs

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/GuestColumns/Fumento20050707.shtml

"How times change! Wasn’t it just in April that the media and food and beverage lobby ran riot over a single study claiming that being overweight is actually good for you? I was among the few who pointed out that this utterly contradicted a mass of previous research, along with what’s known of human biology. Now a new study shows that the burden excess fat exacts on insurance costs comes from the burden it exacts on our bodies.

That study in the July Health Affairs classified people as obese (Body Mass Index above 30), overweight (above 25), and normal (below 25). Granted that “normal” is something of misnomer in a country where only a third of adults are below that 25 BMI level. It then compared medical expenditures for these three categories in 1987 and 2002.

To do so it looked at nine physical conditions aggravated by extra poundage, plus “mental disorders.” For all nine of the physical conditions in 2002, “overweight” persons fared WORSE than “normal” ones. They were almost three times likelier to have type 2 diabetes and well over twice as likely to have high cholesterol and high blood pressure.

But the obese suffer far more. They were more than twice as likely to suffer arthritis, asthma, heart disease, and upper gastrointestinal problems compared to “normal” persons. They were more than six times likelier to suffer diabetes and more than four times likelier to have hypertension.

..."

[getmeouttahere]

4. Yeah, that will be the ONLY remotely positive thing....

about a depression

[HuckleB]

5. ?

:shrug:

[acmejack]

3. That's it-pork up before the coming depression

Won't be able to get fat soon.

[HuckleB]

6. ?

:shrug:

[soleft]

7. Here's my reply to Mr. Krugman

The problem is not obesity. The problem is poor health. There are plenty of thin people who have terrible eating habits, eating fast food, not getting enough exercise. They develop high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and many of the other effects of poor health maintenance.

There are so many psychological factors at play with those who are overweight, outside influences usually exacerbate the causes of obesity. Our culture, our families and friends, the weight loss industry - they all create vicious cycles where people attempt to lose weight, and because of those psychological factors as well as phsiological, such as the effects of dieting on the metabolism, people end up simply becoming more obese. The government trying to get people to lose weight would absolutely be another failed and misguided endeavor.

Dieting results in people gaining weight and screwing up their metabolism, sometimes for life. Attempts to combat obesity in traditional ways seldom veers away from dieting.

This does not mean that the government should not be a champion in bettering people's lives and reducing the costs of medical care.

If the government and everyone concerned with this problem would simply reframe the debate to the promotion of healthy living, healthy eating, being more active, more people, fat and thin alike, could benefit from the campaign, and as a happy side effect, healthy people would find a natural weight is achieveable without messing up their metabolic rate or suffering the ill effect of being a stigmatized portion of the population.

People don't have to smoke. People have to eat. All people should eat well. And be active.

[Dogmudgeon]

8. It's a Growth Stock!

Since obesity is one of the few things we can morally hate and still feel good about ourselves, you can bet that every moral entrepreneur from here to Fresno (home of FreeRepublic.com) is going to get in on the act with their own, unique spin on the proper way to mock, rebuke, and punish the fatties.

So now obesity has a positive value in the Free Market™? That's almost as arch as "It Takes a Family" or the eternal accusation that since Lincoln abused habeas corpus, why can't Bush?

--p!

[Sgent]

9. That study that shows

that obesity isn't a problem is probably one of the best designed studies ever done on weight and health.

This doesn't throw out previous findings, but it raises a LOT of questions.

[HuckleB]

10. Diabetes 2 risk determined mainly by your adult lifestyle

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=27225