Like the issue of obesity itself, there is no one right answer about why the Bush administration last week stalled a World Health Organization strategic plan to reduce global obesity.
But, make no mistake, we need answers.
The world is getting fatter. No country disputes it. Two-thirds of American adults are considered overweight. Some 300 million people worldwide are obese (at least 20 percent greater than a healthy weight) and 750 million more are overweight, including 22 million children under age 5, according to the London-based International Obesity Task Force.
Yet the Bush administration objected to the ambitious WHO plan, which calls for reducing junk-food advertising aimed at children, tying taxes to companies that are deemed to encourage obesity and urging the world’s citizens to eat less sugar and trans fats, mostly found in processed foods. The plan was to be approved last week but was tabled until May.
Not enough hard science, said William R. Steiger, special assistant to the U.S. secretary for international affairs, in a letter to WHO director-general Dr. J.W. Lee.
Consumer activists would argue that it was too hard on sugar lobbyists and Big Food companies for the U.S. to accept.
Steiger’s supporting document, more than 20 pages, included these passages:
– Fast food: “In children, there is a consistent relationship between television viewing and obesity. However, it is not at all clear this association is mediated by advertising on television. Equally plausible linkages include displacement of more vigorous physical activity by television viewing, as well as consumption of food while watching television.”
– Fruits and vegetables: “The [Bush] administration questions the scientific basis for `the linking of fruit and vegetable consumption to decreased risk of obesity and diabetes.'”
– Soft drinks and juice: “Although there is a logical mechanism to support a potential relationship between these behaviors [drinking soft drinks and more than 8 ounces of fruit juice daily], the data do not provide sufficient support to be labeled `probable.'”
Not surprisingly, the Bush administration has been criticized by consumer public health groups. The argument? We may have a president who runs daily and watches what he eats–and a health and human services secretary, former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson, who has lost pounds as part of his announced mission to slim down America–but the government bureaucracy appears poised with knife and fork for second and third helpings served up by food industry lobbyists.
“The Bush administration’s arguments border on the ludicrous,” said Gary Ruskin, executive director of Commercial Alert, a non-profit organization based in Portland, Ore., that works to reduce the incidence of marketing-related health conditions, such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, alcoholism and tobacco-related diseases incurred through smoking. “Does anyone outside the administration and the junk-food industry truly doubt the consumption and marketing of high-calorie junk food plays a role in obesity and other chronic diseases?”
Judith Stern, a nutrition professor at University of California at Davis, is an obesity consultant to both the federal government and major food companies. She is a flat-out wise voice.
Stern said there is validity in questioning the strength of scientific evidence in the WHO plan, including a tendency to use “food supply data” rather than “food disappearance data.” Using food disappearance data would be more accurate, she said, because it factors for plate waste and fat cooked off during food preparation.
Even so, Stern isn’t about to champion the sugar lobby–or the “corn, soy, dairy or beef lobbies” either. She favors taxation of junk-food advertising, without waiting for all evidence. She sees the bottom line as a starting point.
“What the government can do is say, `OK, if your company advertises a food to children that by consensus provides very little nutritional value, such as soft drinks, you can do it but it will cost you extra to do so,'” said Stern. “Plus, `You can’t write off the advertising dollars as a business expense. You will be fully taxed.'”
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Stern added that it’s one thing to say there’s not enough scientific evidence and another to do something about it.
“The government spent $327 million on obesity research last year,” said Stern. By contrast, “the U.S. spent a billion dollars on cancer and AIDS research, more than a billion on heart disease research and almost a billion on diabetes research. Obesity deserves at least that much research money.”
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