American youth too fat to fight?
Food politics makes strange bedfellows.
The Associated Press reports that an organization of retired military personnel, Mission Readiness, is upset about obesity. American youth, it says, are Too Fat to Fight. Obesity may be a threat to personal health, but this group sees the problem as a threat to national security (see note below).
Here’s the irony. The exact opposite was true in World War II. Then, the army had trouble finding recruits who were not undernourished.
How did we go from lean to fat? TV food commercials, for one thing, says Jane Brody in a review of recent studies. Kids eat what they see. The Rudd Center at Yale has even more recent data on the number of commercials watched by young children.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is responsible for regulating advertising. It has been making noises lately about taking on food marketing to kids. I’ve heard rumors that the FTC is ready to release a report on the topic but food marketer’ complaints are holding it up. Many marketers (not just of food) are worried that the FTC might move to restrict Internet marketing.
This might be a good time to ask the FTC what it is doing about food marketing to kids.
Note: Thanks to Bob Bannister for reminding me of George Saunders’ Shouts & Murmurs piece on this topic in the New Yorker.
Addition, April 22: The rumors about food industry pressures on the FTC turn out to be true. Margo Wootan of CSPI reports on a meeting today with representatives of the FTC:
A number of members of the Food Marketing Workgroup met with FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz today and delivered the letter [urging the FTC to publish standards for marketing to children]. It was a good meeting.They said that the standards are not in jeopardy and should be out in the near future. All the industry opposition has caused the agencies to go through a more thorough (i.e., slow) clearance process.
If you can’t block action, you can always delay it as long as possible.
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Comments
I say stop thinking of obesity as a disease: http://www.theinductive.com/blog/2010/1/14/obesity-epidemic-reaches-a-plateau.html
Perhaps you’ve seen The New Yorker magazine’s recent satire on this topic http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2010/01/25/100125sh_shouts_saunders
Good-with no cannon fodder the gov’t might have to stop it’s imperial ways and settle disagreements through diplomacy.
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I do agree that “kids eat what they see”, but this isn`t the source of the problem. Even if FTC changes the regulation for food marketing to kids, it won`t have a positive effect on American youth obesity.
The truth is: kids are not the decision makers for groceries purchases. Fighting against kid’s obesity involves changing the eating habits of their parents. Kids might want to eat a cookie that they saw in a commercial; however, the only certain that we have is that they will eat whatever their parents cook for them at home.
@ Christopher Carr
Obesity IS A DISEASE. Ask your doctor. No one WANTS to be FAT. Your view is unscientific, uncaring, and ultimately, unhelpful.
@PenelopeD
While it is true to some extent that children eat what their parents give them to eat, it is not the whole story. Firstly, it depends on what age group you are referring to. Even small children, who you might say don’t make the food buying decisions, are targeted by the food industry to nag their parents for the products they see incessantly advertised on TV and the internet. Advertisers spend millions on psychologists who advise them how best to accomplish this.
Secondly, older children have access to money and are inundated with junk at school and on every corner and gas station. Parents who care are up against a huge and well-financed bunch of producers, advertisers and lobbyists out to undermine their authority at every opportunity.
Thirdly, many young parents have themselves been brought up in this now ubiquitous culture of junk food every block and fast food every mile. Their mothers worked away from home and they’ve all forgotten how to cook so the kids get junk at home or away. Just watch young Moms at the grocery store.
Cooking is a solution. We all have kitchens, they just need to be stocked and used. By buying and preparing whole foods Americans can kick the salt/sugar/fat addiction resulting from eating prepared food products that contain too much of all of these. We can control what we are eating through cooking for ourselves and keeping whole foods on hand. Anyone can learn to cook, even kids. By making an investment – in ourselves, our health and well-being – we can restore the health of a nation, one person at a time teaching another.
Obesity had to be classified as a disease in order for funding for research and treatment to be mobilized. In academic health circles it’s well understood that “disease” is a classification of convenience.
At any rate, it’s a major risk factor/precurssor for the most prevalent diseases, and steals more “years of life lived” than any other condition. Regardless of whether its cause is by contagion or genes or environment or un/intentional self-abuse or mental health or poverty or lack of skills or x or y or z, or any combination of the above, obesity is an issue that needs dollars.
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”
Anthro,
I guess we just can’t control ourselves then. Of poor us, slaves of fate! The tobacco companies made me smoke cigarettes, the food companies made me eat junk, MTV made me like New Wave! Obesity is not a disease. It’s a symptom of repeated poor choices. Ask myself.