First, something has to rank first among the causes of "preventable death." That obesity is now No. 1 may tell us more about the progress we are making against other problems than about the apparently sudden collapse of willpower in a population inundated by burgers, french fries and chocolate malts. After all, longevity keeps going up even as each new health crisis is discovered.
Of course, the government-must-do-something crisis culture is also quite adept at sounding the alarm at one issue for a few years, then raising hell about precisely the opposite problem in a few years.
It may also be no accident that the presumed surge in obesity claimed by CDC occurred during a period of sustained prosperity and low unemployment. If it had been a period of economic misery, we might still be talking about malnutrition and starvation. Remember the campaign a few years back about all those children going to bed hungry at night--a campaign brought to you by some of the same people now obsessed with fatness?
Were we ever eating just right for even a few moments between the crisis of hunger and the crisis obesity? Oh, of course not, silly me!
E-mail Diana Hsieh
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