I was reading this post over on Seed's Science Blogs this morning in which Jake Young hypothesizes about the correlation between wealth and weight. While countries in dire poverty obviously tend toward skinnier citizens, and relative wealth makes for greater access to food and therefore, greater obesity rates, he posits that the rates would model an inverted U – declining again as the citizenry reaches higher socio-economic status. Right now, poorer people in rich countries have access to only cheap, high-calorie foods, which leads to greater obesity rates in that middle-SES range. Wealthier people are better-able to access quality calories, lowering obesity rates. If that's true, he proposes that possible policies to combat that might be:
1) We make food more expensive. We, in essence, simulate poverty for the purposes of food consumption. This does not mean making our economy more like the Cuban one. Instead, we raise taxes on food or take steps to make more expensive so that people will eat less. This may sound like a ridiculous option, but lots of people advocate various brands of libertarian paternalism -- a term that I still reject as a contradiction -- to fight obesity. They advocate policies such as taxing specific type of high calorie food to make people eat less of them, or they are arguing that we ban certain foods, which will have the indirect effect of making food more expensive.
2) We could try and make the people in the middle of the U richer. We exploit the fact that as people get richer they are more likely to exercise and eat right, that they are more likely to have access to the weight control measures that at present only the very rich have.
This is interesting in light of the fact that obesity has been finding its way into presidential discussions of late, beyond just the tale of Mike "Former Fat Guy" Huckabee. There was even a forum for the specifically on the topic at The George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services last week, in which Bill Richardson promised to "fight obesity every day" as president. Richardson, incidentally, was the only candidate to attend, while most of the others from both the Democratic and Republican slates sent staffers. Clinton and Obama's people pushed better health care as the solution, while Romney and Giuliani's campaigns mumbled something about the free market.
Here are a few other ideas: stop subsidizing Big Corn, release the corporate stronghold on school lunch programs, and generally improve what, how much, and how kids eat in our public schools.
--Kate Sheppard
