Calorie Police: Legislating How Much We Eat
http://thekojonnamdishow.org/shows/2012-07-11/calorie-police-legislating-how-much-we-eat
With an obesity epidemic sweeping the country, lawmakers are trying to help Americans slim down and eat healthy foods. New York City may ban sales of large sodas, and the national health care law will require calorie counts on some restaurant menus. But will those measures help? We explore what it takes to change human behavior and trim our consumption of food and drinks.
Guests
David Just
Professor of Economics and Director of the Center on Behavioral Economics and Child Nutrition Programs, Cornell University
Benjamin Caballero
Professor of Pediatrics and Nutrition at the Schools of Medicine and Public Health at Johns Hopkins University
Comments
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As someone who has been on a diet for 18 months, I am thrilled when I go somewhere where I can see how many calories are in the food I'm ordering. I love going to Panera, and when I choose my meals, I factor in the number of calories in them. It's also great that I am offered an apple instead of bread or chips.
I laughed when I heard of the high school rationing ketchup packets. I remember that in the Reagan years it was considered a vegetable.
Which brings me to my real point: It seems like a ad idea to legislate how we eat. Remember when we were all advised to avoid butter and eat margarine instead -- before we knew about trans-fats?
Having lived in New York where calorie counts must be posted, I think they are great. Your guest and many other researchers are often of the opinion that people don't change their eating habits based on the posted counts. But I think these studies ignore the people who look at the calorie counts and then choose nothing at all. I cannot count the number of times I have wandered hungrily into a Starbucks, looked at the calorie counts and then decided to walk out and go to a nearby bodega to buy a piece of fruit or just wait for the next meal. But behavior like that isn't examined in the studies that have been done on posting of calorie counts. In my opinion, that oversight on the part of researchers leads to flaws in their conclusions.
Ah yes, freedom... invoked whenever special interests rear their heads to undermine the common good. How's that idea of absolute freedom been working for us so far, when so many of our citizens are literally eating themselves to death?
There is really no denying that government intervention - i.e. regulation - is absolutely necessary, at this point. But as long as our legislators are beholden to Big Agriculture, so that portion sizes are obscenely large, high fructose corn syrup is added in copious amounts, school cafeterias serve high calorie, low nutrient "food" and the automobile industry is subsidized to the detriment of public transportation, etc. etc., we the people are going to get bigger and bigger and consequently sicker and sicker. Allowing this to happen, more so, enabling this phenomenon is fundamentally unpatriotic.
As the only true solution to the obesity crisis is Eat Better, Exercise More, and since we quite visibly are not able to make those choices on our own, the government needs to help us do so by subsidizing healthy food choices and disincentivizing unhealthy ones. I sense the will in the WH (Go Michele!), but I fear our Congress as a whole is too venal to do anything about it.
Anything we can do to help americans have a diet that will help manage their health is great! I will not talk bad about those efforts! I will however say that the way to help americans with their diet is a corporate issue! Americans are getting bigger all the time because of corporations greed! Take away the greed part of our food industry and we will be eating real foods and not processed money making foods. Also you have to get americans to understand our rights to freedom do not include eating whatever we want when ever we want. Food is eaten for body and mind and should taste really good. We have to step back and stop using food for other reasons. Remembering that your boday only needs so much real food everyday. And remeber we should only eat real food! Not food produced by corporations to make lots of money!!