Last month, to great fanfare, First Lady Michelle Obama announced her Let's Move initiative to combat childhood obesity.
Tuesday's signing of the historic health reform bill assures that more children, once obese, will actually be able to get treatment for it. The bad news is how ineffective and expensive most obesity treatment actually is. America currently spends $147 billion a year on obesity-related illness.
What's been missing historically is any recognition that the biggest bang for our taxpayer dollars is to prevent kids from getting overweight and obese in the first place. And that's why the White House initiative is so important. It starts the process of making kids' food in schools and communities healthier.
But ultimately, we need to put a spotlight on the fact that our national obesity epidemic is but a single symptom of a more serious illness: our unhealthy food system.
In order to prescribe healthier food, we must rethink the entire system, from the farm to our children's mouths. We wrote about the need for this healthier food system in this month's Health Affairs, which was devoted to child obesity.
Researchers now link obesity with diets rich in added sugars, fats, and refined grains, and of course in the snacks, sweets, beverages and fast foods in which they are so prominent. According to U.S. Department of Agriculture data, in 2007 Americans' average daily calorie intake was 400 calories higher than in 1985, and 600 calories higher than in 1970.
Suprising to many is that the ultimate source of so many of these added calories in the American food supply can be traced to two crops: corn (sweeteners) and soybeans (fats and oils).
But it shouldn't be surprising. For the past 35 years, U.S. farm policy has incentivized the production of a few commodity crops (like corn and soybeans), and the calories that come from them.
In the early 20th century through the 1950s, production of these crops was seen as essential to addressing under-nutrition in the U.S., and throughout the world. U.S. farmers responded by dramatically increasing yields -- up to 600 times higher now than in 1920.
At the same time, depression-era farm programs recognized that overproduction of these crops risked the prices for them plunging below what farmers needed to make a living, or rising above what consumers could afford. As a result, these programs managed supply of these commodities, to keep prices relatively stable, and to keep farmers in business and making money.
But from 1965 through 1996, these supply management programs were gradually dismantled. U.S. farm policy today is designed instead to encourage farmers to grow as much as possible of these few commodity crops, utilizing several different types of subsidies, crop insurance and taxpayer-supported research. Quite rationally, farmers have followed these policy signals, making significant capital investments (new combines, irrigation systems, etc.) to produce these crops.
As a cheap calorie policy, U.S. farm policy has been a success. Foods high in fats, sugars and calories, such as cooking oils, snacks, fast foods and sugared sodas, are some of the cheapest foods in the American diet. But for public health, U.S. farm policy's focus on a few commodities is outdated.
We know, for example, that diets rich in fruits and vegetables can help manage weight and lower risks for cancer and other chronic diseases, especially when they replace calorie-dense, nutrient-poor foods. Yet fewer than one in 10 Americans meet the levels of fruits and vegetable consumption recommended under the latest calorie-specific, healthy eating guidelines. And farm policy historically has overlooked incentives for fruit and vegetable production.
So how do we get farm policy and public health on the same page?
As a start, the executive branch needs to pull together disparate health and agriculture communities around food policy. There needs to be a Healthy Foods Commission -- and it has to be independent. Such a commission, comprised of non-governmental public health, agriculture and food system experts, could work closely with the Administration's Task Force on Childhood Obesity to ensure upstream and downstream food system goals are mutually reinforcing.
Second, America's farmers have got to be key partners in this healthier food system. If the nation is serious about making fruits, vegetables and other healthy foods more accessible, policymakers need to offer at least as much research, financial and other support to growers of these foods as has been offered for decades to growers of commodity crops.
Specific policies to accomplish this might include: reinstating programs to manage oversupply of commodity crops and calories; support for current farmers transitioning from commodity to other crop production; new farmer recruitment, financing and training; an agriculture research agenda that includes a more diverse mix of crops and farming methods; and allowing farmers growing fruit and vegetable to participate in commodity programs of the farm bill.
Third, we need to raise the standards for the National School Lunch and Breakfast programs. These programs should be required to meet the USDA's healthy eating guidelines and this should be codified in the Child Nutrition Act, expected to be voted on soon by Congress.
Today, the quality of the calories produced by U.S. agriculture may be at least as important as their quantity. For us to make long-lasting progress on obesity, we must heal the symptom's source: an unhealthy food system. Let's move!
Follow David Wallinga, M.D. on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Food_Dr
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The problem with ephedra based diet products is that the Pharma cartel can't patent them and make a fortune by selling them as prescription diet pills. Every product is used improperly by a small percentage of people. The FDA took advantage of this and banned ephedra. They will, no doubt, be rewarded by the well known revolving door employment (payoff) between the pharmaceutical industry and well behaved FDA bureaucrats.
And obese people will suffer the loss of this well researched, state-of-the-art weight loss combination.
Now if we could agree on what is a healthy diet and fix our unhealthy food system...
the water to irrigate them is-all of the federal water projects in Calif. and the western US.
As many posters have said it starts with a change in national policies, and I would add, rethinking our relationship with food.
The government subsidizes corn, wheat, and soy -- the very foods that are creating the obesity and diabetes epidemic in this country. The USDA wants products to contain as much high fructose corn syrup as possible as this is a cheap way to make food last longer and exportable. Politicians want the money from large agri-business to get re-elected. And if you really want a conspiracy (although I think it just worked out this way), the medical and pharmaceutical industry is getting wealthy off of our preventable illnesses. There is no upside for corporations (who donate to campaigns) for us to be healthy.
It is imperative that we un-tie the USDA from the food pyramid. Can you imagine a government organization that promotes the use of subsidized crops that are essentially poisoning us to be in charge of recommending what we eat?
I wish the Obamas were more attuned to current scientific and medical research about the dangers of the food the government was promoting -- we definitely need a change.
Fast forward to the 2000's. I'm living in the suburbs of a large American metropolis, raising two kids on a budget. I'm appalled by the things I'm giving my kids to eat--milk and dairy products laced with antibiotics and hormones, produced on factory farms that confine their dairy cows to inhabitable quarters. Meat and chicken--ditto. Mass produced vegetables and fruit with who knows what kind of pesticides infecting the skins. Everything that comes in a package, from pasta sauce to mustard, laced with high fructose corn syrup, sugar, and highly processed foods made from refined flour. This is child abuse, along with animal cruelty.
Is this really progress?
Big corporate ag would like you to think so.
discuss.
http://ozarkhomesteader.wordpress.com/
FYI: Lincoln's Democratic opponent in the upcoming primary is Bill Halter. He raised a record amount of cash in March, but she had a few years' head start, so he still very much needs donations to be competitive. Polling indicates he could defeat a Republican opponent in November, while she could not.
http://ozarkhomesteader.wordpress.com/
http://ozarkhomesteader.wordpress.com/
The truth is out there, I would encourage anyone reading this comment to look into it.
A small handful ot nuts, a veggie sandwich with avocado instead of butter or mayo each day or every other day and grilled salmon a couple times per week does the job.