Someone should take a moment to clue in the authors who keep coming out with
these books to the difference between population health and individual
health.  

Even if obesity is mostly "benign" for an individual,  the cumulative effect
from an entire population is going to add up to a significant number of
disability-adjusted life years, right?

What drives me nuts, though, is that the blame gets shifted to the diet
industry, individuals, and the public health field, when it should (to my
mind) go towards the food environment literally produced by the mega-food
companies and the agricultural policy that enables (and promotes) this food
system.  Or, alternatively, there is no blame because 66% [1] of the U.S.
adult population being overweight or obese is not a problem, no mind the
"dramatic increase" since 1995. [2]

One major determinant of smoking is being targeted by tobacco industry
marketing.  The food industry works in a similar way.  Both were (and food
continues to be) backed, enabled, and promoted through agricultural policy
in the U.S.

Unless, of course, I'm just projecting my fear of the undernourished
supermodel, per J. Oliver, onto the beneficent food industry which could
offer her a vitamin fortified, "nutrient-enhanced", Diet Coke Plus. [3]

That said, there is a rather impressive movement to wrest control of the
food system away from over-processed food (read corporate faux-food
conglomerates and pro-agricultural commodity policy climate) and toward
community food security.  Ryerson University is particularly good in that
field, and in the U.S. we have the wonderful (and recently mentioned on the
list) Community Food Security Coalition at http://www.foodsecurity.org

Joseph Lee, Masters Student
Maternal and Child Health
School of Public Health
University of NC at Chapel Hill

"Imagine that the dolphins were truly free."
   - "Veggie-Hut" by Ugly Duckling

1. 
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/pubs/pubd/hestats/obese03_04/overwght_adult
_03.htm
2. http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/obesity/trend/maps/index.htm
3. http://money.cnn.com/2006/12/08/news/companies/coke/index.htm

> From: Dennis Raphael <[log in to unmask]>
> Reply-To: Social Determinants of Health <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2006 20:25:46 -0500
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: [SDOH] Fat Politics : The Real Story behind America's Obesity
> Epidemic (Paperback)
> 
> http://www.amazon.ca/Fat-Politics-Americas-Obesity-Epidemic/dp/0195313208/sr=1
> -59/qid=1166059374/ref=sr_1_59/701-6846714-9978720?ie=UTF8&s=books
> 
> From Publishers Weekly
> It's not obesity, but the panic over obesity, that's the real health
> problem, argues this scintillating contrarian study of the evergreen
> subject of American gluttony and sloth. Political scientist Oliver condemns
> what he feels is a self-interested "public health establishment"-obesity
> researchers seeking federal funding, pharmaceutical and weight-loss
> companies peddling diet drugs and regimens, bariatric surgeons and other
> health-care providers angling for insurance reimbursement-for spuriously
> characterizing fatness as a disease. He debunks the dubious science and
> alarmist PR that fuels their campaign, taking on arbitrary Body-Mass Index
> standards that slot even Michael Jordan in the overweight category,
> state-by-state maps of obesity rates that make fatness look like a
> contagion spreading over the countryside, and flimsy research studies that
> vastly exaggerate the danger and costs of weight gain. Oliver also examines
> American attitudes towards obesity, probing the abhorrence of fatness
> implicit in the Prot
> estant ethic and, less plausibly, tying our contemporary feminine ideal of
> the emaciated supermodel to a confluence of sociobiology and the economics
> of the urban sexual marketplace. Arguing that fatness is perfectly
> compatible with fitness, he contends that scapegoating obesity drives
> Americans to experiment with dangerous crash diets, appetite suppressants
> and weight-loss surgeries, while distracting us from underlying harmful
> changes in the American lifestyle-mainly our incessant snacking on junk
> food and shunning of exercise and physical activity, of which weight gain
> is perhaps merely a "benign symptom." Oliver provides a lucid, engaging
> critique of obesity research and a shrewd analysis of the socioeconomic and
> cultural forces behind it. The result is a compelling challenge to the
> conventional wisdom about our bulging waistlines. Photos.
> Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All
> rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
> 
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