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The
Obesity Fight Has Several Obstacles
Regarding obesity, ponder these facts:
- Two-thirds of adults in North America are overweight
or obese.
- About 15 percent of kids are overweight, and they're getting
fatter at a faster rate than adults.
- Fast food restaurants have expanded into hospital cafeterias
and schools.
- French fries constitute one-fourth of all vegetables in
the U.S.
In fact, obesity is a bigger culprit than smoking in chronic
illness and health-care costs.
Yet Kelly D. Brownell, director of the Yale Center for Eating
and Weight Disorders, has hope.
That may be because along with the myriad problems, Brownell
has outlined a solution of sorts in his new book, Food Fight:
The Inside Story of the Food Industry, America's Obesity
Crisis, and What We Can Do About It, written with Katherine
Horgen.
"I'm not as pessimistic as it might seem. One of the
reasons is that I take heart in what public advocates have
accomplished in the past with tobacco," Brownell says.
"Thirty years ago, you would have easily said the same
thing about tobacco that you say about food now. It was
entrenched around the world. It seemed impossible, but it
worked."
Clearly, kids and adults are eating more than ever and exercising
less. But don't let that distract you from the main problem,
Brownell warns. In the book, Brownell refers to a "near-total
surrender to a powerful food industry" as one of the
main reasons behind the obesity epidemic.
Not surprisingly, members of the food industry decry these
charges. "Kelly's recommendations on restricting advertising
are quick fixes that, in the end, won't do much for anyone,"
says Stephanie Childs, a spokeswoman for Grocery Manufacturers
of America (GMA), the world's largest association of food,
beverage and consumer product companies.
Instead, the industry says it is looking for ways to police
itself while the GMA is encouraging members to become members
of the Children's Advertising Review Unit, which reviews
advertising and promotional materials directed at kids.
According to Childs, industry members have "stringent
rules" in place for how products are portrayed in advertising.
For instance, products need to be shown in the correct portion
size and children need to be active while consuming them.
A kid munching potato chips while channel surfing on the
couch is not OK. A kid running and playing with the chips
is. "You do need to be active to enjoy some of these
treats," Childs says. "Some of the foods are treats."
Industry also says parents need to take a larger role. "Advertising
is just one means of communicating to the public about a
product and making people understand who the product is
most appealing for," Childs says. "But what we've
learned through research is that parents are the most important
role model for kids for setting patterns and habits on eating."
But parents, pitted against huge food companies, are fighting
a losing battle, Brownell counters.
"Let's say you ate every meal of the year with your
child and every meal you delivered a very compelling nutrition
message. That's 1,000 exposures for you for every meal of
the year," Brownell says. "The problem is the
food industry has 10,000 exposures on television alone because
the average child sees 10,000 food advertisements every
year. They have Madison Avenue doing these wonderful things
with animation and cartoon characters and sports heroes,
so who's going to win that one?"
He adds, "It's not a fair fight and we've handcuffed
parents in raising healthy children."
Brownell doesn't want to talk about diets because, ultimately,
diets don't work. He wants to talk about prevention. "You're
never going to treat this problem with a diet," he
says. "You've got to prevent it from occurring in the
first place."
And because obesity is so hard to treat once it exists,
programs have to start with children, and with the environment.
"Important aspects of food preferences and physical
activity get established in childhood. If kids can learn
to do the healthy things and the environment encourages
it, you may have a healthy person for life," Brownell
says. "But the problem now is that the environment
is so bad it makes it almost impossible for a parent to
do a good job in raising a healthy child."
Where does that leave you? With a slew of recommendations
from Brownell's book, among them:
- Develop a national strategic plan to increase physical
activity
- Earmark transportation funding to increase activity with
bike paths, walking paths, buses with bike racks
- Protest to companies like Nickelodeon and Disney for offering
up their characters to sell unhealthy foods
- Encourage celebrities not to promote such foods
- Prohibit marketing to children
- Do not allow food company logos or advertisements on school
property, including buses
- Require food labeling at restaurants
Significant victories are already occurring, Brownell notes.
"Los Angeles and New York have plans to ban soft drinks
in their schools," he says. "That's a huge accomplishment
both because of the number of children affected but also
because of the statement this makes. The school systems
are saying we're no longer going to be beholden to the soft
drink industry."
For more on obesity in children, visit the American Academy
of Family Physicians or the U.S. Surgeon General. For more
on kids and advertising, visit the Children's Advertising
Review Unit.
Article Source: HealthDay
Article Author: Amanda Gardner
Net Reference 101
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