Comments on: on obesity, the media, food conglomerates and choices

By: Heather

Heather — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 14:26:12 +0000

I totally agree with everything you’ve said.

I’d like to add that as someone who never eats fast food and who cooks dinner (from scratch) 5-6 nights/week, I am tired of being punished with higher food costs then if I just drove through a Burger King or Taco Bell.

About 90% of my family is obese and I am personally fighting my genetics tooth and nail and I still have about 30-40 lbs to lose to be fit and healthy. I buy local, organic, whole grain, unprocessed foods (for the most part) that are free of High fructose anything and it is bloody expensive! If I bought chicken nuggets and french fries for dinner every night, I’d save so much money.

They tax cigarettes but they don’t tax junk foods.

Sigh. Sorry. Had to join in the rant there. I find the whole thing very frustrating sometimes.

By: wendy g

wendy g — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 12:50:27 +0000

Very thought provoking post. That fine print can be very scary. I will have to check out the IK too.

By: Loredena

Loredena — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 17:14:56 +0000

I’ll be surprised if the government mandates anything in regards to healthier foods — yes, the amount of corn in our foods (not just the high fructose corn syrup!) is a huge problem. A problem caused in large measure by the government’s really really wierd food incentives, that have led to massive production of food corn, and a commensurate need to find a way to use it in our food supplies (The Omnivore’s Dilemma has a wonderfully interesting section on corn).

For what it is worth — Kraft Foods was owned by Philip Morris (not RJ Reynolds) as was Nabisco (merged with Kraft several years ago), but Kraft was partially spun off 3 or 4 years ago, and fully so a year back, so is now completely independent again. (Or as independent as a company can be, when beholden to its shareholders).

By: Jen

Jen — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 13:56:07 +0000

I agree with everything except for one statement, and that is that society does, in fact, view smoking as a character flaw – Trust me. After 24 years of having had people look down on me, I feel pretty confident in smokers do not get a free pass just because the chemical addiction is acknowledged. (If anyone thinks sugar/processed food is not a tough chemical to beat as well, then they’re living in a dream world!)

By: Cecilia

Cecilia — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 04:47:02 +0000

you go girl!

By: paula

paula — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 23:36:27 +0000

Great post. Really makes me think that I need to look at what I am eating. I had not even noticed the IK photos either.

By: mel

mel — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 20:00:57 +0000

Good post. Those IK shots were probably not even a conscious choice; I think that’s one of the most frustrating and frightening things to me about these societal/media expectations, how deeply ingrained they are in our psyche. Oh, and also how damn hard it can be to find out how bad something really is for you. You have to want to know (or actually, first you have to suspect that there’s something fishy about this line we’re being fed before you would ever think to look into it – not something you may have time for if you’re more worried about how you’re going to put gas in your car to keep going to work to keep a roof over your head). And you have to have the energy to track it down and try to find out. And then you have to care enough about yourself to steer the boat and make better choices – also hard to do when there’s no living up to the portrayal of what we’re supposed to look like/behave like/etc. See, I can’t even write a post like this, I’d come off as some big wackjob conspiracy theorist ;) So anyway – Great post, thanks for sharing your thoughts.

By: Amy

Amy — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 19:55:08 +0000

It’s a very scary trend. I’ve been reading a lot about it lately, since I work on contract for the Sajai Foundation, which is developing curriculum for kids to learn about nutrition and health and activity. Frightening stuff is going on out there.

By: Nannette

Nannette — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 19:43:10 +0000

Great post! Interesting point on the new IK.

It makes me NUTS that the school district here is trying to promote healthier foods in the elementary lunch line (ha! it is still mostly oven-fried style, carb-heavy, little anything else) but yet the elementary school (teachers, librarians, counselors, etc) use CANDY as rewards! WTF?!?! Don’t even get me started that the middle school thinks that both POP TARTS and RAMEN are the acceptable “lunch line alternative” foods to sell at the student bookstore. Again, WTF?!?!

And on a related note, have you seen the BMI set at flickr?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/77367764@N00/sets/72157602199008819/detail/
VERY interesting to see how the BMI scale looks on people.

By: sara

sara — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 19:12:06 +0000

You might be interested in the book Fatland: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World

http://www.amazon.com/Fat-Land-Americans-Became-Fattest/dp/0618380604/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_k2a_2_txt?pf_rd_p=304485601&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-2&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0618164723&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0KPAHK2XXEK6Q6HB87PR