“‘Society’ Must Change If Fewer People Are Going To Be Fat.”

That seems to be the message in this Shari Roan piece in the Los Angeles Times.

The vast majority of overweight and obese Americans will not lose sufficient weight — and obesity won’t be prevented — without major changes in society, say the authors of a thoughtful, although bleak, commentary published today in the Journal of the American Medical Assn.

The piece, by Martijn B. Katan of the University of Amsterdam, and Dr. David S. Ludwig of Children’s Hospital, Boston, should not deter people who have resolved to eat healthier and exercise more in the new year. However, it points out some hard truths about weight loss and American’s obesity epidemic.

For example, the authors explain, when an individual reduces food intake and his or her body size diminishes, so does the amount of energy needed to maintain and move it. “Therefore, additional weight loss can only be achieved by a more severe diet or a more arduous physical activity routine,” they write. “Most individuals do the opposite: After having achieved some weight loss, they resume their original diet and exercise habits. Consequently, weight gain recurs rapidly.”

The second problem: It takes just a small energy imbalance (taking in more calories than burned) to cause a hefty weight gain over time. For example, they say, drinking 1 ounce of a soda and walking one minute less per day create a temporary energy surplus of about 13 calories a day. Over 28 years, however, that would produce a 35-pound weight gain. Some studies have shown the average American today consumes about 500 calories per day more than they did in the 1970s…..

“Studies show that even the most motivated, thoughtful, strong-willed people have a hard time losing weight when huge portions of cheap, tasty, convenient food are available at every turn of the road, and when walking and other forms of exercise are superfluous or impossible.”

One wonders, of course, what force might be—or become—strong enough to separate us from the crunchy snacks we like to unwind with at the end of the day. Hey, I know! Let’s try . . . government! The state is unrivalled as a change agent; in fact, it’s done wonders for the North Koreans, who seem to keep their weight down beautifully. In fact, those who come into contact with tourists appear to be at an almost healthy weight—they are merely slender, as opposed those who indulge in the concentration-camp chic widely sported in the Nork countryside.

A nation of ectomorphs: don’t dream it—be it.

And, here’s Rin, berating the United States in an email to me over our putative “food insecurity” problem:

[P]overty is clearly rising in America. Food banks, soup kitchens, and shelters cannot keep up with requests for charity. “Food insecurity,” a polite way of saying there isn’t enough food in the house for everyone, has doubled in the last 10 years. Almost one quarter of all children in America live in homes with at least some “food insecurity.” “Very low food security” has more than doubled since 2000.

Talking to statists is crazy-making: on the one hand, the state should ensure that every household, no matter how badly run, has enough food in it. On the other hand, we must slash the calories available to the average American—expecially among the poor, who are terribly vulnerable to obesity. Got it?

That was why I stopped listening to NPR: at the time, gasoline prices were rising, and half of the NPR stories were about how hard it was on working people that gas prices were going up. The other half pushed the need to conserve energy. And either the writers of the first set of stories never talked to the writers of the second set of stories, or no one at NPR realized the fundamental rules of economics, and understood that if fuel prices went up, people would figure out how to use less of it. Somehow, the government was expected to create a skeleton key intervention that would simultaneously decrease the cost of fossil fuels, and decrease the rate at which people used them.

Likewise, if we tinker enough with the food supply, “we” (and by “we,” of course, I mean government, which sucks the money out of 7-11 clerks’ paychecks for the Greater Good) should be able to simultaneously eliminate “food insecurity” (understocked pantries) and obesity at the very same time.

Thanks to Margaret for the tip; I’m going to go slash my wrists.