Obesity Explained
It’s economics:
The rise in obesity is attributable primarily to changes in the price of consuming, and the cost of expending, calories — changes that are byproducts of otherwise beneficial technological advances. The price of food and thus of calories has long been trending downward because of agricultural innovations that have greatly reduced the time and resources required to go from hungry to full.
Long-run changes in economic incentives explain the cross-country pattern of obesity as well as its increase. Explanations based on biology, addition or culture are unconvincing because they leave unexplained why, for example, Africans are less obese than Americans or why widespread obesity is a relatively recent phenomenon.
See the full article on obesity and economics by Richard Posner and Tomas J. Philipson.
Posner is always intersting. And he’s usually right.
Posner may be right, but you economists (counting Posner as an economist because he uses the econmmic point of view in all his writings) are the only people around who think this way.
Life is all about incentives.
The argument is that none of the other explanations (other than economic incentives) works.
Bill Dietz, director of the CDC’s division of nutrition, physical activity and obesity, recently remarked that part of the reason residents of Colorado have an obesity rate much lower than other states (about 20%) is their high elevation. Nearly two-thirds of the state’s residents live in the Denver metro area. The high elevation (above 5,000 feet) boosts their metabolism.
The idea that obesity epidemic is based on economics and can therefore be solved with economics is both wrong and foolish. First, the affordability of food in the US hasn’t changed much in the past decade, but obesity has increased significantly. Second, if affordability was driving obesity the people who could afford the most food should be the fattest. The opposite is true; obesity is much more prevalent in lower income groups then in upper income groups.
Its culture; its lifestyle, its education; its a processed and fast food industry that engineers products with the addictive trio of fat salt and sugar that have maximal caloric content and minimal nutritional content. We’re simply not rational economic actors when it comes to food consumption.
Obesity rates in the US population over 20 have not changed much in the last decade. Adolescent obesity also seems to have stabilized. The data come from NHANES. There hasn’t been any significant change in female obesity since 1999-2000. For men, there has been no change between 2003-2004 and 2007-2008. In fact, the percentage of the population that was obese fell between 2005-06 and 2007-08. (The CDC reference is http://www.cdc.gov/NCHS/data/hestat/obesity_adult_07_08/obesity_adult_07_08.pdf)
Might as well blame the bureaucrats who created WIC and food stamps as the food chemists. After all, obesity is more prevalent in groups that receive government food aid.
1-2 diet dirnks minimum per day. So, if a diet coke is okay then surely Crystal Light is okay right?I’m asking my doctor tomorrow, but it’s Sunday and they are closed right now.I know water, skim milk, and 100% fruit juices are the best, but every now and then I’d like to have something other than water flavor that’s not 90-110 calories as most fruit juices and glasses of SKIM milk are.(I know the side affects of aspartame-I also know the side affects of 170 calorie fruit juices such as weight gain-and the genetic predispositions of both. My body is more sensitive to extra calories than aspartame.)What is the difference between Crystal Light and a Diet Coke?