Kelly Brownell, editor of Eating Disorders and Obesity, wrote a paper about how much weight relates to our increasingly toxic food environment. She showed the amounts of money that are spent on marketing what she calls toxic foods, which are energy-dense (super high calorie) ones. She says that for any one individual who's obese, there will be factors such as genetic susceptibility. However, when a nation is obese, and becoming increasingly so, the answer leads us to environment--that no matter how strong genetic susceptibility is, there is no obesity without a "bad environment."
This is an intriguing theory, and one which I think has real merit. She likens this to cigarette smoking. Not every smoker gets lung cancer, and it's believed that those who do have a genetic prediliction for it. However, without the environment of smoking, no individual will get it. That makes sense to me.
She writes, "It is difficult to imagine an environment that places people at greater risk for obesity than that seen in the United States . . . . Food in this environment is available, inexpensive, and promoted in unprecedented ways." She goes on to say that McDonald's marketing budget is $1.1 billion, and Coca-Cola's $866 million, a year, and these are only two companies. The budget of the National Cancer Institute to promote healthy eating is only $1 million. She also gets into the portion size problem, which we all know has greatly increased over the last 20 years, just as obesity rates have climbed.
Addressing physical activity levels, she suggests that we live in a bad environment there, as well. I know that we don't have as much activity as we did decades ago. With elevators, cars, computers, and so forth, we take the easy way out and don't exercise. But I think her argument here isn't as strong. Jogging, weight and strength training, walking, and so on, have been "trendy" since the late '70's/early '80's. I'm wondering if one isn't already obese, which makes exercise more difficult and unappealing, is the reason (or one of the reasons) why activity is down.
Still, the fact is that we're in sedentary jobs, even housework and gardening are easier with modern methods, cable TV (and once again, computers), and other things increase obesity, or at least, overweight. Even fast food lacks any activity involvement. There's no chopping, standing, walking to get things, etc., and you don't even have to get out of your car to grab the food--they have drive-throughs. How much worse can it get?
If you're of a certain age, you'll remember that from kindergarten on, we were required to take physical education in school. Now, only one of the 50 states mandates phys. ed. for students. That's a surprising statistic.
It seems to me that someone with a genetic tendency to obesity--which I believe is nearly all of us--plus a disturbed eating pattern, is doomed to it unless they learn that the battle will be life-long, and messages from corporations are for profit only, not to give you tasty foods for pleasure. We might know that it in our heads, but getting it through to our guts is another story.
Later, 'gators.
All this is so true. I know I have a genetic link with my obesity but there were things in the environment that had to trigger that link. I didn't start out heavy as a child.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment, Karen. So you didn't start out heavy, either. Both of my parents had weight problems, and my mother was obese at a minimum of two times in her life. She became diabetic (type II runs in our family), but didn't show any improvement when she lost weight. She didn't lose much, though, so I don't think it was enough to get her back to diet treatment alone.
ReplyDeleteYes, the environment makes it so much easier for us to pack on the pounds. I'm hopeful that as it becomes commoner to see nutritional info displayed in restaurants, that will help people make better choices more easily.