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More obesity big-picture stuff. 14 October 2009 3:08 pm

Posted by Tracy in : consumerism,convenience,food snobbery,health,health at every size,history,politics,responsibility,writing , trackback

So here’s a few thoughts I cut from last Wednesday’s post since it was running too long. I am tempted to make my health-at-every-size ranting a regularly-scheduled feature, but “Weighty Wednesdays” is just too cutesy and besides, I haven’t exactly been rocking the regularly-scheduled posts these past few months anyway.

So. Here I go. Despite its persistent reporting by both government and mass media sources, I am extremely skeptical about the oft-trumpeted assertion that we are in the midst of an obesity epidemic. I should probably spend some time analyzing the hell out of the use of the term “epidemic” when I think “crisis” or “panic” are more appropriate, but for now I’m trying to get on with this post (also, chances are somebody smarter or at least speedier than me has already written something awesome on the subject, and I should research it a bit and quote wiser words instead of making readers suffer through mine).

ReBELLYon.
My belly thinks maybe the whole idea of “obesity epidemic” is not even wrong.

What I will write is something I tried to express in my food sociology class last Monday: I think a lot of the sound and fury about obesity is people freaking out about the relatively recent development that for the first time in human history there’s so much food that a majority of our species isn’t starving (I’m guessing hunger was a pressing prehistorical problem, but there’s less evidence to go on in that department). We’re evolving away from “Are we eating?” past “Are we eating enough?” and I think the next question is “Are we eating well enough?” but that question is really, really hard, and so people are trying to ask “Are we eating too much?” instead. Now it turns out that “Are we eating too much?” is actually not a super-easy question, either, and it’s extra-fascinating if we look past individuals to consider the continued existence of famine and chronic malnutrition in the face of historically unprecedented food abundance. But there I go with the big picture again, and so maybe now you’re starting to get an idea of things I might have to illustrate as well as rant about.

Now. I do believe that some people are trying to ask “Are we eating too much crap?” and that the answer to that question is far too often “Yes.” (Note: the definition of crap is extremely debatable, and I’m still working on my definition thereof. More on that in a bit.) Unfortunately, people aren’t placing as much emphasis on the last word of that question as I’d like, and so I much prefer “Are we eating well enough?” even though it’s hard. I think that fixating on quantity instead of quality is a mistake because if the past few decades of food trends have shown us anything, it’s ever-increasing quantities of diet (or otherwise “healthified”) junk food — and now I’m having a hard time coming up with any food specifically marketed for weight loss that isn’t junk.

Anyway. I must run to school now, but in the wake of last Wednesday’s food policy class discussion, I have been thinking a lot about what kind of mass-produced foods I consider not-junk, in light of the fact that food companies are not stupid and will no doubt be trying to cash in on efforts to be seen as not contributing to poor public health “the obesity epidemic.” I do not think it’s a coincidence that big food companies looking to improve their image focus on obesity, which is easily quantified (albeit in ways that are reductive to the point of near-meaninglessness), rather than health, which really is not. Easily quantified, that is. Anyway. Where was I? Oh yes. What kind of products could big industrial food companies make to convince me that they aren’t entirely out to produce the cheapest, most profitable crap they can get away with putting on the market? Umm… well, it’s something to ponder, anyway.

  • Marcy

    Hey Tracy, For the first time, I heard a major news outlet (Slate) say that perhaps we shouldn’t help people get thin, but get richer. His article is here, and although I find the accompanying image to be offensive, I think the text is well put. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

    http://www.slate.com/id/2229523/

    -Marcy

  • Jen/Mili

    I agree with the poverty/obesity connection Marcy’s link, though making people richer is not necessarily the solution…I’d say self-sufficiency is a better goal that encompasses some of the same attributes as being rich. People tend to eat what’s closest to them (geographically speaking), and poor neighborhoods almost always have more fast-food restaurants and convenience stores. Any sort of “slow food” movement is also a non-starter in poor neighborhoods because they work longer hours and have less time to prepare meals. Basically poor people have less control over their lives, and therefore also over what goes into their bodies.

    I doubt raising salaries alone will work though because supply/demand will take over: if all of South Central LA were suddenly able to afford to shop at Whole Foods they would just raise prices.

  • http://www.tracyfood.com Tracy

    Hi Mili! I haven’t read the article Marcy linked yet, but even before I started trying to get a master’s degree in this stuff, I was already pretty fascinated by the socioeconomic determinants of health. Anyway, your comment fits right in with the kind of discussions we’ve been having in both my classes this term, and I might be writing a big geeky sociology paper about improving people’s access to good, cheap food close to home. So much planning seems to focus on building new, big grocery stores (and to New York’s credit, they’re trying to mandate that such stores devote a certain amount of space to fresh produce) but I think there’s a lot to be done with smaller-scale solutions in existing food retail venues (convenience stores, etc.) Right now, cheap, crappy food is where the profits are at, but since that situation grew out of existing policies I really want to believe in policy solutions. Because I am an enormous planning nerd.

    Marcy — I will read the Slate article, do my best to ignore its illustration, and hope the writer doesn’t try to get any libertarianism on me. Depending on how that goes, I may or may not have interesting comments for you. One thing I’m struggling with a bit in my obesity epidemic skepticism is that certain corporate shills (cough cough, Center for Consumer Freedom, cough cough) express ideas that are just similar enough to mine to make me super-twitchy. On the other hand, they’re just as hateful as the anti-fat ranters, and I’m still convinced that it can’t be good for anybody’s health to make people feel bad about themselves. Which of course ties back to the socioeconomic status thing again, and now I’m rambling and should go to bed and save these thoughts for a more coherent time. But thanks for commenting!

  • Janelle

    Hey Tracy! Have you read The Obesity Myth by Paul Campos? It is really excellent, and touches on a lot of tough issues, like the way being prejudiced against fat people can be a way to just hide racism, and that being a little too thin is way worse for your health than being a lot too fat, though mostly activity level is a much more important factor in health than weight at all. Our culture obsession with weight has a lot more to do with vanity and ridiculous beauty standards than anything even remotely like a real health concern. Not that junk food isn’t an issue, but as you say, diet food is often as bad if not worse than the junk it claims to help you stop eating.

  • http://www.tracyfood.com Tracy

    Hi Janelle! I’ve read a lot of articles by Campos, and I started reading The Obesity Myth a few years ago but had to return it to the library unfinished. Still, it’s definitely on the reading list for my final project for my policy class, in which I want to write about how maybe it would be better for food and health policy to focus on, y’know, health, instead of weight. Point number one is the blindingly obvious fact that healthy behaviors (like good food and exercise) are healthy for everyone, not just fatties. After that I may or may not even have time to dissect social construction and social determinants and how they might be addressed by policy. One excellent book I have read on the subject of fatness and society’s obsession therewith is Gina Kolata’s Rethinking Thin. She follows participants in a big weight loss study, intending to write a book about what kind of diet is best, and ends up concluding: um, none of them. Along the way she delves into some great history and science, and now I’m thinking I should dig up my notes on her book because I’m sure they’re chock-full of books and studies I could use for the aforementioned project.