Who's to Blame for Obesity?

You may have read that The Institute of Medicine released a report earlier this week on the topic of obesity. I have not read the report – yet – but from what’s been recounted by the media, it seems that one of its major findings on why most people have such difficulty maintaining a healthy weight is that our culture is an obesity-promoting environment.

Well… duh.

In addition, the Institute has teamed up with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health and HBO to produce a series of documentaries on the subject entitled The Weight of the Nation, to air next Monday and Tuesday nights. Fear not, food industry groups have responded, assailing the assault on our freedom to choose what we eat and the specter of the food nanny state. The folks responsible for all of those fatty, sugary, salty foods we can’t resist say that if people are obese, it’s solely due to a lack of personal responsibility. You can read more from the Center for Consumer Freedom here.

Could that be the sound of deflating profits I hear?

I think you know my position on the food industry and food marketing. But the question remains: who is responsible for obesity? I don’t need to do any research to answer the question because I have lived this question for my entire life. There is no doubt in my mind that the many nights I spent scarfing down massive quantities of Ben and Jerry’s while lounging on the couch had something to do with why I was fat. Yet once I decided to become responsible for my weight and take on the challenge of a new way of eating and exercising, it seemed that most everything around me opposed my efforts.

For example, I can choose to avoid certain restaurants notorious for high-calorie fare, but if I attend a business conference and the lunch I’m offered includes potato chips and cookies but no vegetables, what do I do? I can decide to keep only healthy foods in my house, but when I go to work, how do I deal with the endless parade of brownies, bagels, donuts and holiday goodies that my co-workers bring in? If I muster my resolve in these situations and say “no thank you,” people who claim to care for me get exasperated and say things like, “oh come on, one little piece won’t hurt.” I’m afraid to add up the calories contained in all of those “one little pieces.”

But it gets even more personal than that. My husband loves pasta and on a regular basis he suggests we go to a neighborhood restaurant that serves a plethora of pasta. I, on the other hand, have discovered that my body is highly sensitive to grains; when I eat more than a token serving of grains, which include bread, rice and – yes – pasta, I start to gain weight at an alarming rate. This man, who says he loves me more than life itself, gets very disgusted when I don’t want to go to his favorite restaurant. His logic is that, after all, it’s only “one little meal.”

Take my word for it. We live in an obesity-promoting environment. The two-thirds of Americans who are overweight or obese are not lacking in personal responsibility. The 97% of people who lose a large amount of weight and then gain it all back are not lacking in personal responsibility. They are struggling with a tricky beast called obesity. To tell people that they alone are responsible for the state of their weight, while simultaneously tempting them with fatty, sugary, salty foods, is disingenuous at best. One could say that to ignore the role of the environment in such a serious health crisis as this is itself a sign of a failure of responsibility. By our government. By the public health community. And by a food industry that reaps fat profits from keeping us fat.