The Fattening of America

A new book, The Fattening of America, claims that "the economy makes us fat". There's something to that.

Over two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese. What's alarming about this statistic is not just the volume of Americans who have tipped their scales—but the velocity at which they're doing it. Over the past three decades, the number of obese Americans has more than doubled. The increase occurred up and down the socioeconomic spectrum, for all racial and ethnic groups, and, most dramatically, for America's children.

What's behind the sudden, explosive rise in obesity rates? In a word, it's economics. Author Eric Finkelstein, a renowned health economist who has spent much of his career studying the economics of obesity, with the help of coauthor Laurie Zuckerman, reveals why America's growing waistline is a by-product of our economic and technological success. Because of declining food costs, especially for high-calorie, low-nutrient foods, and increasing usage of technology, which make Americans more sedentary, the environment has changed in such a way that we're eating more calories and burning off less.

The issue is not that Americans don't care about their increasing waistlines—quite the opposite, in fact. But the reality is that in America's (and increasingly the world's) obesity-inducing environment, the sustained changes in behavior required to lose the weight and keep it off are simply too difficult—and becoming more difficult all the time. Moreover, generous insurance coverage and vastly improved medical treatments have lowered the health costs, if not the monetary costs, of excess weight. So carrying a few extra pounds is not as bad for one's health as it used to be.

Economics is important - basically, food has gotten cheaper and exercise more expensive. But, the bolded passage above contains, I think, an important proviso, i.e. hardly anyone anymore has willpower. Not only that, but one of the costs of obesity that has gone down considerably is stigma. In the past, being obese made one an object of scorn. Strange as it may seem to some, I'm old enough to remember when the obese had fingers pointed at them. Which is obviously no longer the case.

As the passage points out, the obese don't want to be that way; if they could snap their fingers and become slender, they would. Unfortunately, losing weight requires willpower; not the willpower to withstand being hungry, but the willpower to make a lifestyle decision, and stick with it. Which is precisely what they can't do.