The U.S. Childhood Obesity Task Force: a comment 26 March 2010 2:28 pm
Posted by Tracy in : diet stress is a health hazard,geekery,health,health at every size,nutrition,politics,writing , trackbackSo on February 9 of this year, President Barack Obama signed a Presidential Memo establishing a joint task force between the U.S. Departments of Agriculture, Health and Human Services, and Education, directing those agencies to come up with a plan to address the “problem” of childhood obesity. The task force is part of a larger effort, led by First Lady Michelle Obama, with the uncontroversial but catchy name Let’s Move! and I have extremely mixed feelings about this project because I support almost everything about it except the fact that good things like improved school lunches and increased access to healthier food in underserved neighborhoods are being pursued in the name of ending obesity. Those mixed feelings are part of why I haven’t posted about Let’s Move until now—but also, I ran into a deadline. The Joint Task Force’s official Request for Information is accepting public responses until 11:59 tonight (and yes, that link will take you to much more information about the Task Force and a way to submit comments of your own). Here is what I wrote:
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The weight-centered approach to food and health is at best misguided, misleading, and patronizing, but at worst outright insults and alienates the very people it supposedly serves. We can—and must—do better. I propose redirecting Let’s Move (and U.S. health promotion policy in general) away from its focus on obesity “prevention” (weight loss/weight control/obesity reduction, etc.) towards health at every size, and in particular good food for everyone. Poor nutrition harms people of all sizes; let that be our starting point for defining what foods are unhealthy, not the circular definition of “fat is unhealthy, therefore fattening foods are unhealthy, and clearly everything fat people eat must be fattening/unhealthy because otherwise they wouldn’t be unhealthy/fat.” I am attaching a supporting document from the Health At Every Size policy portfolio I wrote for a class last term; it includes references to books and articles whose ideas I could not summarize with fewer than 1000 characters remaining in this comment field—and pictures!
Thanks for reading,
-Tracy van Cort
http://www.tracyfood.com
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The link to my post about the policy portfolio is a stand-in the actual attachment, “Health at Every size 101: With Pictures!” and a reminder to me: make a web-friendly version of that rant! For a more eloquent, heartfelt explanation of why Let’s Move is problematic, please read A long-delayed missive on “childhood obesity”, from a onetime obese child on Fatshionista; I also appreciated Daniel Engber’s more analytical approach take on Slate.
