POLICY: Pat Salber says we should change policy on food availability

Pretty scary stuff from Pat Salber over at Peertrainer: The Doctor Weighs in on The epidemic of childhood obesity.

It is estimated that boys born in the US in the year 2000 have a 30% chance of developing Type 2 diabetes during their lifetime; girls have a 40 percent chance. Think of that: 1 in 3 boys and close to half of girls who are now in kindergarten will become diabetic at some point in their lives. 

Pat is right. If you’ve seen SuperSize Me or read Fast Food Nation you just know that we are with food where we were with smoking in the early 1960s. It’s going to be a 30–50 year battle, but in the end the forces that will have to pay the costs of obesity will gang up on the big food vendors and producers. It will remain a private choice, but one that is increasingly difficult to get to due to limits on access and social opprobrium. And the obvious place to start, as Arnie knows, is in the school cafeteria and with commercials. After all we know the commercials work, or they wouldn’t be on TV!

I did see this most amusing article a while back that showed that watching violence on TV didn’t make anyone violent, but watching food made 36% of the viewers want to eat.  I know it’s true! I personally am in the middle of one of my violent diets. I have taken a month off-booze, off-cards, off-sugar and off-meat three times since January 2005, and gone seriously onto working out at the gym. The good news is that I’m back snowboarding with no problems and have lost around 30 pounds. The bad news is that any restaurant or food commercial is making me ravenous! And boy do I miss my chocolate milk!