Kids in the U.K. have government looking over their shoulders – not to see if they're selling drugs, bringing weapons to school, or sticking snakes in their teachers' desks. No, at select schools in Plymouth, government officials are examining kids' lunchboxes to make sure the little moppets are munching the right morsels.
Britain, like America, is increasingly worried about obesity, and the focus is on fat kids.
"We need to make sure that whatever children are eating at lunchtime is nutritionally balanced, whether that's school meals or from home," said one health official. "If they're having wholemeal bread with salad, fruit and perhaps water, not sugary drinks, that would be fine, but if it's lots of crisps and chocolate, no fruit and white bread with ham, that's different."
Boy, is it different.
"Sugary drinks" – like the Coke I'm drinking right now – get loads of blame for kids with ungainly girth.
A study published this month by the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition points to a boost in high-fructose corn sweeteners in the 1970s and '80s as "coincidental with the epidemic of obesity," according to researcher Dr. George Bray of Louisiana State University's Pennington Biomedical Research Center.
But you know how the press is. Headlines didn't just mention the "coincidental" link; some outright blamed fructose-laden drinks for obesity, even calling them "culprits."
Americans are fat, no doubt about it. By current standards, the feds consider 65 percent of Americans overweight, and obesity among American adults has jumped 30 percent since the 1990s. Though the latter number is exaggerated some, it’s still a noteworthy concern.
The situation with kids is also troubling. In California, research shows more than 25 percent of children in grades 5, 6 and 7 are overweight, and 90 percent of respondents to a recent Field Poll say obesity is a serious problem for kids and teens. In fact, only drugs outrank bad eating habits as the greatest perceived health risk to Golden State kids, according to the poll.
But are all these wadded waistlines the fault of food and soft drinks?
What about the people drinking all these sugary drinks and eating all this junk food? Do we sit on our butts all day? Get out and walk, run and actually move our limbs more than necessary to reach the TV remote?
"It's not about the high-fructose corn syrup being a part of foods, it's about how many calories we're eating against how many calories we're burning," responds registered dietitian Alison Kretser.
But people don't like hearing that because extra calorie burning usually means exercise. And the same paternal busybodies who lecture us on tobacco, guns and drugs especially don't want to hear that because individual responsibility means their effort to paint constituents as victimized by the products of evil corporations is mainly bull.
The parallels here to the recent tobacco wars are striking. You can see it in the way the press deals with the rest of Kretser's bio. The Associated Press quickly notes her connection to "the Grocery Manufacturers of America. Members include Coca-Cola Co., Kellogg Co. and Sara Lee Corp." The implicit message: You can't believe her that exercise matters because she's a soda shill. The fact that others unconnected to "Big Food" have said similar things is apparently irrelevant.
If AP is going for simple full disclosure, why not also report on the grants that the fructose researchers received and note their bias toward finding results that keep them employed?
As with any scare story hyped by the press, the idea isn't balanced reporting, but to inflate the perceived danger of things and either ignore the full scientific picture (e.g., dioxin) or individual responsibility (e.g., crack).
This serves the interests of obesity pimps like Yale's Kelly Brownell quite well. In his new book, "Food Fight," he claims we live in a "toxic" food environment. "Unhealthy food is cheap. It is also convenient, fast, packaged attractively and tasty," he says. Meanwhile, "Healthy foods are more difficult to get, less convenient and expensive ... [A]n epidemic of obesity is exactly what you'd predict."
Kelly Brownell, author of "Food Fight," June 2003. Photo courtesy of Center for Consumer Freedom. |
Maybe, but only if you assume people can't think for themselves or take control of their lives – which, incidentally, seems pretty much what Brownell believes.
To wit: Part of his solution to the "epidemic of obesity" is to levy sin taxes on foods he deems unhealthy. He also wants to "chang[e] the price structure of food" to induce more healthy consuming (by his standards, of course).
Both of these schemes mean one thing: Big Government. And Big Government means one thing: Coercion. Brownell wants to force you to eat healthy ... or else.
Government gets what it wants through the threat of force. It regards individual choice not as an important aspect of liberty, but as an annoyance that occasionally needs penalties to keep people in line – for their own good, of course.
But government doesn't know what's in the best interest of individuals. It can only deal in bulk, which means one-size-fits-all solutions and a basic hands-off approach to individual responsibility.
Never mind that you can eat that Twinkie without blowing up like a dirigible. Because your neighbor refuses to watch his intake and personal habits the government must now keep you both from eating what you want.
And any government with enough invasive reach to enforce those kinds of measures will assuredly be doing more than peeking in your kid's lunchbox.