War against unhealthy food threatens to be apocalypse now
COMMENTARY
Patrick Jennings

There’s an obesity epidemic in America. But as epidemics go, it’s not all that horrible. I love the fact that while half of the world is eking out a meager existence on a cup of rice a day, we’ve got to stop ourselves from eating a Big Mac on a regular basis.

About 127 million adult Americans are overweight, and almost half of those are obese, which means they’re 20 percent or more above their ideal weight. As you can probably tell by the mug shot, I’m in that part of the population. But fat Americans are hardly breaking news. The real question has become, “What is the government going to do about it?”

Of course, the government should not have to do anything. I’ll spare you the lecture on personal responsibility, for now, and focus on the question. The problem is bad enough that the government has to worry about rising health care costs to treat a generation’s worth of angioplasties and heart bypass surgeries. Experts estimate it costs roughly $100 billion a year to deal with the health issues related to obesity.

The government can’t force you to eat your vegetables or say that you can’t have dessert without cleaning your plate. You also won’t see a mandatory exercise time set up for the entire nation. We live in a great and free society, where we’re free to grow to a great size.

Congress is going to have to start treating Oreos like they treat cigarettes. Step one is getting the corporations to fess up to ignoring some health facts. Step two, increase taxes on “unhealthy” foods. Step three, start educating little kids about the dangers of gorging on chocolate and the like.

Step one is taking shape. Kraft foods recently vowed to cut portion sizes on some of its items. Kraft is a division of the company formerly known as Phillip Morris, the cigarette maker and definitely no stranger to court battles over unhealthy products. Individuals won’t be able to make this happen. You probably remember the case where McDonald’s was sued for not providing sufficient warning that their food was fattening. At some point, companies will have to answer for the increase in portion sizes that has occurred over the years.

Case in point: How big was a Coca-Cola bottle 50 years ago? It was about eight ounces. Now I’ve seen 22-ounce bottles of Pepsi on the shelves.

Step two will be tricky. How exactly are you going to define what is and isn’t “healthy”?

The food conglomerates won’t be able to throw money at their representatives in Congress fast enough. Can you imagine if a Wendy’s hamburger makes the cut and a Big Mac doesn’t?

On the other hand, that desperate race to be spared from the tax hike will more than likely make the foods you love healthier. The tax will move customers to the cheaper and now healthier alternative. The healthy businesses grow faster and the effect multiplies over time.

Step three has been tried and is ongoing. Remember, Arnold Schwarzenegger headed President Bush the elder’s council of fitness or something along those lines. Half of the problem is the sedentary lifestyle of today’s youth. Congress introduced a bill this summer calling for more community projects to combat child obesity. Nickelodeon’s public service announcements have started to lean toward, oddly enough, getting kids away from the TV set. Pushing the dangers of cigarettes seems to have worked well against teenage smoking, but this is battling something kids have been fed since before they can remember.

I hope it works. Although it is nice having a large variety of XXL shirts to choose from when I go shopping, it will be nicer to avoid colon cancer when I’m 76.

Patrick Jennings is a junior economics major from Melbourne, Fla.