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September 3, 2004
Public-Health Zealots Hit Sour Note
The choir of anti-obesity fatheads is reaching a crescendo as a new article in the American Journal of Public Health (AJPH) describes a purported consensus among public-health busybodies in favor of severe restrictions on our favorite foods. In the "Editor's Choice" section of September's issue, public-health scolds write: "There is growing support for addressing our obesogenic -- or obesity-promoting -- society. How? By recognizing that people eat, smoke, and drink what is affordable and available to them." As we've asked before, does that mean we need more costly and less available food to satisfy these people? Should we "have food that tastes like crap?"
The choir of anti-obesity fatheads is reaching a crescendo as a new article in the American Journal of Public Health (AJPH) describes a purported consensus among public-health busybodies in favor of severe restrictions on our favorite foods. In the "Editor's Choice" section of September's issue, public-health scolds write: "There is growing support for addressing our obesogenic -- or obesity-promoting -- society. How? By recognizing that people eat, smoke, and drink what is affordable and available to them." As we've asked before, does that mean we need more costly and less available food to satisfy these people? Should we "have food that tastes like crap?"
The "Editor's Choice" article goes on to call for the tyrannical trifecta of "legislation, regulation, and taxation" to control our food choices and limit what the authors call "supermarket wastelands." Perhaps they missed the U.S. Department of Agriculture report on how supermarkets are offering an ever-increasing variety of fresh fruits and vegetables. In fact, it noted that there are "127 different ways to eat a serving of fruits and vegetables for less than the price of a 3-ounce candy bar."
While the "Editor's Choice" column promotes a Kelly "Big Brother" Brownell-style agenda, other articles in the very same issue of AJPH actually point to improving diets for young children, and suggest more reasonable ways of addressing our national girth. One of these studies found "consumption of grains, fruits and vegetables improved" for American preschoolers between 1977 and 1998. In the other, researchers from the RAND Corporation concluded that "expanding physical education programs in the schools in the form in which they currently exist, may be an effective intervention for combating obesity in the early years."
The American Public Health Association, publisher of APJH, will hold its annual meeting in November. Click here to learn more about its last annual meeting and the draconian agenda of this anti-enjoyment enclave.
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