Re: Big lessons for a healthy future

GysdeJongh wrote:
The associated chronic health problems
are projected to cost society an additional £45.5 billion (US$93 million) a year. Politicians and the public would like to avoid this alarming scenario. The causes of obesity are relatively well understood - the challenge lies in how to develop effective, evidence-based policy interventions.

There are some interesting historical models for political, social and cultural change that have been successful in improving health and safety for large numbers of people. The four that come to mind in the U.S. are the movements for anti-smoking, automobile safety, automobile emissions control, and tamper-proof packaging. In the four cases, there was a perceived need for change, a grassroots movement pushing change, public education, government intervention, and industry participation often against its immediate financial interests.

The obesity epidemic is amenable to the same forces that reshaped societies on the four problems mentioned above.

Unfortunately, there is a special problem with food, inactivity and human behavior that is likely to make the obesity problem as intractable as the problem with illicit drugs.

Changing human behavior isn't easy, particularly when the abused substance is so attractive, ubiquitous and necessary for survival.

There are some encouraging signs, though, in the areas of public information, grassroots movements and government action. Food labeling is one of the recent victories, but much more needs to be done, though we need to be careful to protect personal freedom. I don't want to see food police telling us what we can and cannot eat. I would much rather see informed persons making better decisions.

On the other hand, if the predictions of a kind of bankruptcy of health care costs come about because of the "diabesity" epidemic, people may demand restrictions on personal freedom or accept financial abandonment of persons afflicted with some classes of diseases. Either of these outcomes would be ugly.






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