Fighting Obesity in the US
Another Daily Kos comment, to the story Gresham's law in America's battle of Bulge. Obesity is a serious issue in the United States and it hasn't been handled well by the government or health care, as a matter of preventative education. I think that personal responsibility is key to any lifestyle change, but the author of the original story also points to some important economic factors that constrict individuals. I would recommend reading the story, but I don't think you need to if you just want the gist of my comments...
Good points
I think you raise some of the important complexities in the growing American obesity epidemic. I think you've got the diagnosis right, but as you point out, the public health "treatment" is a bit harder.
I am loath to begin mandating that food producers and sellers limit the unhealthiness of their food beyond the point that the ingredients are clearly noxious. Why? For one, I think it's the government overstepping its boundaries. The government's role is to ensure that food is safe, but it can't restrict food from being unhealthy. After all, that term is soft: An Olympic athlete might enjoy a celebratory piece of pie that a diabetic shouldn't.
Whether we like it or not, preventative health care does rest largely on personal responsibility. Proper nutrition and healthy living require an investment on the part of the individual. If a person does not take charge of his/her own life in this regard, no sweeping legislation can do it for him.
However, to become invested, people need to be informed. And once they are informed, people need the means to act on their information.
Government agencies are involved, but should be more involved, in campaigns to spread information about the prevalence and risks of obesity and ways in which it can be avoided. This is also the responsibility of physicians and the profession of medicine must make preventative education a higher priority. The latter, of course, only matters if an individual is so lucky as to have access to a primary care physician. But restructuring the health care system such that it actually serves the whole population is another matter.
As for providing the means for informed individuals to live a healthy lifestyle--here is where I think you bring up your most interesting points. I hadn't thought about the costs associated with eating well. I wonder if a start, targeted at low-income families, would to be to increase the value of, say, food stamps for items such as fresh produce, in order to encourage the use of food stamps to buy more healthy food. It's just an idea and I can already see the limitations of it: Like I said, "healthy" and "unhealthy" are soft terms and that introduces a whole host of complications. But maybe it's a start?
I think an additional problem is that of exercise. For inner-city neighborhoods, particularly those in cold climates, the potential to exercise might be limited by 1) sedentary jobs, 2) inclement weather, and 3) living environments unsuitable or unsafe for physical activity outside. The YMCA helps by providing low-cost opportunities for the community to get exercise and programs like that should probably be encouraged. I think it would be hard and probably unnecessary for the government to create an infrastructure that facilitates exercise, but funding of private programs that do just this, especially in the most needy environments, could be a partial solution.
Good points
I think you raise some of the important complexities in the growing American obesity epidemic. I think you've got the diagnosis right, but as you point out, the public health "treatment" is a bit harder.
I am loath to begin mandating that food producers and sellers limit the unhealthiness of their food beyond the point that the ingredients are clearly noxious. Why? For one, I think it's the government overstepping its boundaries. The government's role is to ensure that food is safe, but it can't restrict food from being unhealthy. After all, that term is soft: An Olympic athlete might enjoy a celebratory piece of pie that a diabetic shouldn't.
Whether we like it or not, preventative health care does rest largely on personal responsibility. Proper nutrition and healthy living require an investment on the part of the individual. If a person does not take charge of his/her own life in this regard, no sweeping legislation can do it for him.
However, to become invested, people need to be informed. And once they are informed, people need the means to act on their information.
Government agencies are involved, but should be more involved, in campaigns to spread information about the prevalence and risks of obesity and ways in which it can be avoided. This is also the responsibility of physicians and the profession of medicine must make preventative education a higher priority. The latter, of course, only matters if an individual is so lucky as to have access to a primary care physician. But restructuring the health care system such that it actually serves the whole population is another matter.
As for providing the means for informed individuals to live a healthy lifestyle--here is where I think you bring up your most interesting points. I hadn't thought about the costs associated with eating well. I wonder if a start, targeted at low-income families, would to be to increase the value of, say, food stamps for items such as fresh produce, in order to encourage the use of food stamps to buy more healthy food. It's just an idea and I can already see the limitations of it: Like I said, "healthy" and "unhealthy" are soft terms and that introduces a whole host of complications. But maybe it's a start?
I think an additional problem is that of exercise. For inner-city neighborhoods, particularly those in cold climates, the potential to exercise might be limited by 1) sedentary jobs, 2) inclement weather, and 3) living environments unsuitable or unsafe for physical activity outside. The YMCA helps by providing low-cost opportunities for the community to get exercise and programs like that should probably be encouraged. I think it would be hard and probably unnecessary for the government to create an infrastructure that facilitates exercise, but funding of private programs that do just this, especially in the most needy environments, could be a partial solution.