It Will Take A Famine
11 Jun 2006
“How can the obesity problem be solved in our country”, a U.S. interviewer recently asked me. He expected me to discuss all the usual diets to fight this epidemic. And I hadn’t had too many Martini’s nor was I joking when I replied, “It would really take a famine”. Is this just my dreary opinion or are others simply using different words to say the same thing?
A report from the Institute of Medicine in the U.S. says nine million children older than six years of age are obese. Another U.S. report shows that children whose mothers are obese are 15 X more likely to be obese by six years of age. And we know from experience that obese children usually grow up to be obese adults. This is a grim scenario for the U.S. but Canada is not immune to this problem.
Dr. Peter Nieman, Founder of the Pediatric Obesity Clinic in Calgary, reports that one in three children in Canada are overweight and developing adult diseases. He’s seeing non-alcoholic fatty degeneration of the liver in kids. In the worst cases the child’s liver ends up looking like the liver of those suffering from alcoholic cirrhosis.
Dr. Ariel Feldstein, a pediatric gastroenterologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, reports a similar story. Every week he sees several children with an average age of 12 who have symptoms of liver disease.
Even immigrating to the U.S. is dangerous. Citizenship does convey advantages. But several reports show that newcomers quickly adopt U.S. eating habits, gain weight and start to suffer from U.S. degenerative diseases.
Readers of this column all know the answer to this dilemma. It’s been said thousands of times that people must eat fewer hamburgers, fries, and other fast packaged foods. And use their legs more than their car. The question is why isn’t this working and why is it doomed to fail?
A German proverb says, “Abundance kills more than hunger”. There’s simply too much abundance of the wrong foods in North America. Supermarkets are full of things you either shouldn’t eat or at least eat in moderation. But are supermarkets about to remove these products from shelves and see customers move to other stores? Hell will freeze over before that happens.
Will consumers suddenly see the tragedy of obesity and stop purchasing these items? I don’t see this happening. Fast foods have become so ingrained into our habits that it would take the coming of a Messiah for this to occur. Go into any supermarket in the U.S. and you will see that one in two customers are often grossly overweight. It’s evident that too few are getting the message.
Nor will consumers find refuge in restaurants. Everything in U.S. eateries is super-size. Or it’s Friday and “all-you-can-eat night”. Temptations to eat to satisfy are everywhere. Is this going to change?
Will schools suddenly get wise and insist on compulsory daily exercise programs? School boards and health departments have had years to legislate this common sense measure to fight obesity. There’s no evidence of it happening.
What about doctors? They all talk, write articles and give speeches about obesity and diabetes. But during an office visit how many have the time and the knowledge to teach nutrition? I know few colleagues who fit that category. In fact, they spend more time talking about the dangers of blood cholesterol. And more citizens will die from the hazards of obesity than will ever succumb to high blood cholesterol. Even doctors can’t get these priorities straight.
So I’m not being facetious when I say it would take a famine to fight the obesity epidemic in both countries. I’ll even make a prediction. The U.S. war in Iraq and its huge national debt are major problems. But in the long run these pale in comparison to the problems both countries will be burdened with by the medical bills of obesity.
Next week a twin epidemic that is striking this country.
