The War on Weight

Copyright © Illustration by Edel Rodriguez

The History of Heavy

Science alone, however, does not explain what Yancey, Li and other UCLA researchers call our "obesegenic" culture. Americans became the country with the largest percentage of obese people because of a very complex matrix of factors. Experts point to a powerful triad of factors that, in the broadest strokes, serve to make us fat:

One, probably the most hyped cause, is the ubiquity of cheaper, fattening foods that are aggressively marketed. In the last 30 years, the price of high-sugar foods sweetened with corn syrup plummeted while the food industry developed cheaper ways of producing oils. The result? Inexpensive, low-nutrient, high-calorie foods.

Two, it's more difficult to get physical these days. It's not because we're couch potatoes, necessarily. Automation, the shift from labor to service jobs, computers and e-mail, TV watching, no regular P.E. in school and a reliance on car transportation are just some of the ways we don't move anymore. Li points out that the subtlest lifestyle changes add up to huge results — for instance, innovations in chair designs that require less muscle to maintain body position have made the calorie expenditure of sitting almost as low as that of lying down.

And third, fat is a survival mechanism. Li says the human body for centuries has been designed to resist what has historically been the greatest threat to our survival as a species — starvation.

Pounds for Politics

Here's the rub, though: Obesity is fast becoming one of the most popular issues with which to score political points. Recently, much of the public attention has been focused on the food industry and its marketing tactics, especially as it concerns children. States from California to Massachusetts have banned soda sales in schools and state and national legislative efforts like the 2004 Prevention of Childhood Obesity Act have gained momentum.

The government's war on weight has been joined by activists. In July, for example, Children Now put on a conference called "The Future of Children's Media: Advertising" in Washington, D.C., one of the primary purposes of which was to examine the possibility of legislative restrictions on marketing food to children. With the threat of protective legislation hanging over their heads, marketers have rushed to introduce and promote "healthier" options — 4,500 new low-calorie, low-fat food and beverage products introduced since 2002, according to Dan Jaffe, executive vice president of the Association of National Advertisers.

Published Oct 1, 2006 12:00 AM