The world is too fat. Too bad
Evolution is mostly to blame. It has
designed mankind to cope with deprivation, not plenty. People are perfectly
tuned to store energy in good years to see them through lean ones. But when bad
times never come, they are stuck with that energy, stored around their expanding
bellies.
Filling the world's belly
Dec 11th 2003
The healthiest Canadians
Dec 11th 2003
Health
Thanks to rising agricultural productivity, lean years are rarer all over the globe. Modern-day Malthusians, who used to draw graphs proving that the world was shortly going to run out of food, have gone rather quiet lately. According to the UN , the number of people short of food fell from 920m in 1980 to 799m 20 years later, even though the world's population increased by 1.6 billion over the period. This is mostly a cause for celebration. Mankind has won what was, for most of his time on this planet, his biggest battle: to ensure that he and his offspring had enough to eat. But every silver lining has a cloud, and the consequence of prosperity is a new plague that brings with it a host of interesting policy dilemmas.
As a scourge of the modern world, obesity has an image problem. It is easier to associate with Father Christmas than with the four horses of the apocalypse. But it has a good claim to lumber along beside them, for it is the world's biggest public-health issue today—the main cause of heart disease, which kills more people these days than AIDS , malaria, war; the principal risk factor in diabetes; heavily implicated in cancer and other diseases. Since the World Health Organisation labelled obesity an “epidemic” in 2000, reports on its fearful consequences have come thick and fast.
Will public-health warnings, combined with media pressure, persuade people to get thinner, just as they finally put them off tobacco? Possibly. In the rich world, sales of healthier foods are booming (see survey ) and new figures suggest that over the past year Americans got very slightly thinner for the first time in recorded history. But even if Americans are losing a few ounces, it will be many years before the country solves the health problems caused by half a century's dining to excess. And, everywhere else in the world, people are still piling on the pounds. That's why there is now a consensus among doctors that governments should do something to stop them.
Diet by fiat?
There's nothing radical about the idea that governments should intervene in the food business. They've been at it since 1202, when King John of England first banned the adulteration of bread. Governments and people seem to agree that ensuring the safety and stability of the food supply is part of the state's job. But obesity is a more complicated issue than food safety. It is not about ensuring that people don't get poisoned: it is about changing their behaviour. Should governments be trying to do anything about it at all?
There is a bad reason for doing something, and a couple of good ones. The bad reason is that governments should help citizens look after themselves. People, the argument goes, are misled by their genes, which are constantly trying to pack away a few more calories just in case of a famine around the corner. Governments should help guide them towards better eating habits. But that argument is weaker in the case of food than it is for tobacco—nicotine is addictive, chocolate is not—and no better than it is in any other area where people have a choice of being sensible or silly. People are constantly torn by the battle between their better and worse selves. It's up to them, not governments, to decide who should win.
Get them young
A better argument for intervention is that dietary habits are established early in childhood. Once people get fat, it is hard for them to get thin; once they are used to breakfasting on chips and Coke, that's hard to change. The state, which has some responsibility for moulding minors, should try to ensure that its small citizens aren't mainlining sugar at primary school.
Britain's government is gesturing towards tough restrictions on advertising junk food to children. That seems unlikely to have much effect. Sweden already bans advertising to children, and its young people are as porky as those in comparable countries. Other moves, such as banning junk food from schools, might work better. In some countries, such as America, soft-drinks companies bribe schools to let them install vending machines. That should stop.
A second plausible argument for intervention is that thin people subsidise fat people through health care. If everybody is forced to carry the weight of the seriously fat, then everybody has an interest in seeing them slim down.
That should not be a problem in insurance-financed health-care systems, such as America's. Insurance companies should be able to charge fat people more, because they cost more. But group health insurance schemes, which cover most Americans, are forbidden, by law, to discriminate against fat people. The health secretary, Tommy Thompson, is trying to wiggle his way around this prohibition to allow health companies to give discounts to people on fitness programmes. He should not have to: rules that prevent insurance companies charging fat people what they really cost should go.
That leaves the question of what should happen in a state-financed health system. Why not tax fattening food—sweets, snacks and take-aways? That might discourage consumption of unhealthy food and recoup some of the costs of obesity.
It might; but it would also constitute too great an intrusion on liberty for the gain in equity and efficiency it might (or might not) represent. Society has a legitimate interest in fat, because fat and thin people both pay for it. But it also has a legitimate interest in not having the government stick its nose too far into the private sphere. If people want to eat their way to grossness and an early grave, let them.
Filling the world's belly
Dec 11th 2003
The healthiest Canadians
Dec 11th 2003
Health
Thanks to rising agricultural productivity, lean years are rarer all over the globe. Modern-day Malthusians, who used to draw graphs proving that the world was shortly going to run out of food, have gone rather quiet lately. According to the UN , the number of people short of food fell from 920m in 1980 to 799m 20 years later, even though the world's population increased by 1.6 billion over the period. This is mostly a cause for celebration. Mankind has won what was, for most of his time on this planet, his biggest battle: to ensure that he and his offspring had enough to eat. But every silver lining has a cloud, and the consequence of prosperity is a new plague that brings with it a host of interesting policy dilemmas.
As a scourge of the modern world, obesity has an image problem. It is easier to associate with Father Christmas than with the four horses of the apocalypse. But it has a good claim to lumber along beside them, for it is the world's biggest public-health issue today—the main cause of heart disease, which kills more people these days than AIDS , malaria, war; the principal risk factor in diabetes; heavily implicated in cancer and other diseases. Since the World Health Organisation labelled obesity an “epidemic” in 2000, reports on its fearful consequences have come thick and fast.
Will public-health warnings, combined with media pressure, persuade people to get thinner, just as they finally put them off tobacco? Possibly. In the rich world, sales of healthier foods are booming (see survey ) and new figures suggest that over the past year Americans got very slightly thinner for the first time in recorded history. But even if Americans are losing a few ounces, it will be many years before the country solves the health problems caused by half a century's dining to excess. And, everywhere else in the world, people are still piling on the pounds. That's why there is now a consensus among doctors that governments should do something to stop them.
Diet by fiat?
There's nothing radical about the idea that governments should intervene in the food business. They've been at it since 1202, when King John of England first banned the adulteration of bread. Governments and people seem to agree that ensuring the safety and stability of the food supply is part of the state's job. But obesity is a more complicated issue than food safety. It is not about ensuring that people don't get poisoned: it is about changing their behaviour. Should governments be trying to do anything about it at all?
There is a bad reason for doing something, and a couple of good ones. The bad reason is that governments should help citizens look after themselves. People, the argument goes, are misled by their genes, which are constantly trying to pack away a few more calories just in case of a famine around the corner. Governments should help guide them towards better eating habits. But that argument is weaker in the case of food than it is for tobacco—nicotine is addictive, chocolate is not—and no better than it is in any other area where people have a choice of being sensible or silly. People are constantly torn by the battle between their better and worse selves. It's up to them, not governments, to decide who should win.
Get them young
A better argument for intervention is that dietary habits are established early in childhood. Once people get fat, it is hard for them to get thin; once they are used to breakfasting on chips and Coke, that's hard to change. The state, which has some responsibility for moulding minors, should try to ensure that its small citizens aren't mainlining sugar at primary school.
Britain's government is gesturing towards tough restrictions on advertising junk food to children. That seems unlikely to have much effect. Sweden already bans advertising to children, and its young people are as porky as those in comparable countries. Other moves, such as banning junk food from schools, might work better. In some countries, such as America, soft-drinks companies bribe schools to let them install vending machines. That should stop.
A second plausible argument for intervention is that thin people subsidise fat people through health care. If everybody is forced to carry the weight of the seriously fat, then everybody has an interest in seeing them slim down.
That should not be a problem in insurance-financed health-care systems, such as America's. Insurance companies should be able to charge fat people more, because they cost more. But group health insurance schemes, which cover most Americans, are forbidden, by law, to discriminate against fat people. The health secretary, Tommy Thompson, is trying to wiggle his way around this prohibition to allow health companies to give discounts to people on fitness programmes. He should not have to: rules that prevent insurance companies charging fat people what they really cost should go.
That leaves the question of what should happen in a state-financed health system. Why not tax fattening food—sweets, snacks and take-aways? That might discourage consumption of unhealthy food and recoup some of the costs of obesity.
It might; but it would also constitute too great an intrusion on liberty for the gain in equity and efficiency it might (or might not) represent. Society has a legitimate interest in fat, because fat and thin people both pay for it. But it also has a legitimate interest in not having the government stick its nose too far into the private sphere. If people want to eat their way to grossness and an early grave, let them.
From the Economist:
When the world was a simpler place, the rich were fat, the poor were thin, and right-thinking people worried about how to feed the hungry. Now, in much of the world, the rich are thin, the poor are fat, and right-thinking people are worrying about obesity...
When the world was a simpler place, the rich were fat, the poor were thin, and right-thinking people worried about how to feed the hungry. Now, in much of the world, the rich are thin, the poor are fat, and right-thinking people are worrying about obesity...
Posted: Fri - December 12, 2003 at 06:42 AM
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Published On: Sep 17, 2004 12:36 AM
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Published On: Sep 17, 2004 12:36 AM