Ellen Goodman.....Putting Obesity Out of Business

[Stuart G]

.Published on Friday, July 24, 2009 by The Boston Globe
Putting Obesity Out of Business
by Ellen Goodman


What caught my eye was not just the ashtray sitting forlornly on the yard-sale table. It was the sign that marked it “vintage,’’ as if we needed to label this relic of mid-century America.

Ashtrays that once graced every airline armrest, coffee table, and office have gone the way of spittoons. Today the car’s cigarette lighter is used to juice up the cellphone. Ask any restaurant for the smoking section, and you’ll be shown the doorway.

If I had to pick the year attitudes changed, it would be 1994, when seven CEOs of Big Tobacco came before Congress and swore that nicotine wasn’t addictive. A lobby too big to fail and too powerful to oppose began to lose clout. Smokers are no longer seen as sexy and glamorous but as the addicted dupes.

I don’t know that we will ever have such a dramatic moment in the annals of Big Food. But I have begun to wonder whether this is the summer when the (groaning) tables have turned on the obesity industry.

Now that two-thirds of Americans are overweight, the lethal effects of fat are catching up to those of cigarette smoke. We regularly hear the cha-ching of obesity costs in the healthcare debate. And we are beginning to see that Overweight America is not some collective collapse of national willpower, but a business plan.

A measure of the moment is “Food Inc.,’’ a documentary chronicling the costs to the land, worker, and customer of a food industry that’s more grim factory than sylvan farm. A system that makes it cheaper to buy fast food than fresh food.

A more personal measure is David Kessler’s bestseller, “The End of Overeating,’’ which is both a thinking person’s diet book and an investigation into an industry that wants us to eat more. The former head of the FDA had crusaded against smoking, but found himself helpless before a chocolate chip cookie. So this yo-yo dieter set out to discover what exactly we’re up against.

Kessler is a scientist, not a conspiracy theorist. He takes you to an industry meeting where a food scientist on a panel called “Simply Irresistible’’ offers tips on “spiking’’ the food to make people keep eating.

We eat more when more is on the plate. We eat more when snacks are ubiquitous, when flavors are layered on and marketed as “eatertainment.’’ As one food executive admitted to Kessler, “Everything that has made us successful as a company is the problem.’’

Sometimes it seems that our consumer society sets up the same conflict again and again. Sophisticated marketing campaigns hard-sell everything from sex and cigarettes to the 1,010-calorie Oreo Chocolate Sundae Shake at Burger King. And we’re told to stay abstinent or tobacco-free or skinny by resisting them. We are even promised “Guiltless Grill’’ entrees at Chili’s that can weigh in at almost 750 calories and are only guilt-free when compared with the Texas cheese fries that tip the scales at 1,920 calories.

The analogy between Big Tobacco and Big Food is imperfect. You can’t quit eating or wear a food patch. We are also quite torn between “size acceptance’’ and criticizing fat as a health risk.

But if the campaign against smoking provides a model, it’s in the effort to label restaurant foods and expose the tactics of Big Food. It’s also recasting the folks who bring us bigger food as obesity dealers. As Kessler writes, “The greatest power rests in our ability to change the definition of reasonable behavior. That’s what happened with tobacco - the attitudes that created the social acceptability of smoking shifted.’’ Are we the addicted dupes of the Frappuccino?

The honchos at McDonald’s may never confess how the Big Mac made us bigger, and the food scientists at Frito-Lay may not explain why we “can’t eat just one’’ potato chip. But maybe this will be the year when an entree of chicken quesadillas with bacon, mixed cheese, ranch dressing, and sour cream - 1,750 calories - begins to look just a little bit more like an ashtray

[Wednesdays]

1. K&R

:kick:

[K8-EEE]

2. K&R -- I think the ruinous health consequences of bad food are underrated

After smoking, the best think you can do for your health (and bank account) is just say no to junk food (not to say there isn't lots of delicious food besides junk to eat!)

[elleng]

3. Dear Ellen Goodman caught me.

:-(

I am an addicted dupe of the MOCHA Frappucino!

(Is an occasional Junior Whopper OK?)

[wizstars]

6. I'm not addicted--I'm strictly a recreational user...... n/t

[TygrBright]

11. An OCCASIONAL just about anything is okay.

The secret to healthy eating was put succinctly by Michael Pollan: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

If you do that 98% of the time or even 95% of the time, the other 2%-5% you can have a Junior Whopper, or a Nut Goodie, or whatever.

We evolved to be able to eat just about anything --occasionally-- and survive and thrive.

We did not evolve to eat a diet that consists almost entirely of industrially-produced foodlike substances that have had all relationship to actual food processed out of them.

My secret vice is licorice.

But I can buy a bag of good Australian licorice and it will last me a coupla months. Most of the time I eat grains, beans, fresh veggies and fruit, and a little eggs, cheese, yogurt, chicken and meat.

Repeat it until it's second nature: "Eat FOOD (as in, real actual food produced by real actual farmers, and cooked by you and your family). Not too much. (Actually, once you purge your body of toxic crap, portion control becomes easy, your appetite re-orients to reality!) Mostly plants. (Including grains and beans and nuts and all kinds of good stuff.)"

And once in a while a Junior Whopper, why not?

helpfully,
Bright

[winyanstaz]

4. The obesity problem in America is not just due to food.

Fluoride in our water is also causing gross obesity..one of its KNOWN side effects they don't tell us about.
Also the GROWTH HORMONES our meat is loaded with. We are what we eat after all. Do we really believe that those hormones and chemicals make the cow and pig put on mass fat and growth and not us?

[truedelphi]

7. Those are major problems for us.

Unacknowledged by our Corporate Controlled scientists, but very evident in what is happening to the population.

[juno jones]

14. Add in Frankenfood and HFCS.

There's a lot in our modern food that is indigestable by our bodies and winds up as fat.

And the lack of a public health sytem to help those who might have problems.

It's so easy to blame the fat for their plight. Not only that, but easy to see everybody not conforming to current aesthetic values as 'fat'. Especially women.

It's deep and unspoken.

[Stuart G]

15. Public health system would work, but because fat foods taste good,

we have a "special kind of problem." Cigarettes smell bad, taste bad and leave ash.

Sweet and fatty foods being made, actually smell great. And many really taste great too. Also, most Americans do not see 15 percent extra weight as a problem. Yet in Asia, it is clear compared to the rest of the population, who is overweight. Here, overweight people easily blend into the rest of the population.

Juno, is also correct that a public health system would help those who are "addicted." Sadly, most do not see the constant overeating as an addiction, while there is acceptance of overdrinking everywhere.

Lastly, this is very very important.
More Americans die from heart disease, than any other cause.
....The leading cause of heart disease, is overeating..

[Blue_Tires]

5. bookmarked for later

[eppur_se_muova]

8. Frederik Pohl was right! nt

[Stuart G]

9. I wonder if Ellen is right..someday the Big Mac with Fries and

a Super Size Shake will be thought of as an ashtray. I doubt it.

While people easily see the dangers of smoking and obsessive drink, there are just too many obsese Americans to think that some day they will see the light. Yes, a few millions perhaps. but tens of millions more will always want that bacon quesadeila with ranch and sour cream...1700 calories and how much saturated fat?

[Scout]

13. "tens of millions more will always want that bacon quesadeila with ranch and sour cream"

and if they do, so the fuck what? their health or lack of same is for them to worry about, not food nannies.

[Blue_Tires]

10. sunday kick

[drexel dave]

12. I live near a Cargill plant

I think people get fat around here from just breathing.

[Hestia]

16. Was it on this forum, or somewhere else, that said our dinner plates have

even gotten bigger in size, they should be 9" (about a sandwich plate size) to 12". Reducing your plate size will make a big difference. I highly suggest the DASH diet (Mayo Clinic has great info), eating more veggies, fruits and grains makes all the difference.