EDITORIAL: TIME TO GET THE FAT OUT

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
August 19, 2003

The secret to a successful diet isn't just eating less but moving around more. Too bad too many state legislators across the nation refuse to accept it. Instead, they seem to have swallowed whole the notion that the national epidemic of obesity can be cured with government regulation.

Yes, government plays a role, but regulation isn't the answer.

Obesity should be treated as a chronic illness, not as a contagious disease. It's the result of many things: the volume and availability of food; lifestyle changes, and, of course, sedentary living. Much of this is learned, which means children are on course to poor health long before they become adults. As a recent Journal Sentinel series on obesity pointed out, the percentage of overweight 6- to 19-year-olds has almost quadrupled nationwide since the 1960s. Type 2 diabetes - in the past seldom seen until middle age - is rising sharply among children.

The most flagrant case of legislative overkill comes from New York, where Assemblyman Felix Ortiz has proposed six anti-obesity bills, including one that would tax fatty foods and, preposterously, things that contribute to sedentary living such as movie tickets, video games and DVD rentals.

But taxing foods people like to eat and taxing legal things they like to do is impractical, nanny-state nonsense. A better solution is education - the kind that requires government, industry, schools, health departments, doctors and parents to pitch in. As an example, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended earlier this month that all children should have their body-mass index - a height-to-weight ratio - evaluated each year to identify and prevent obesity.

A number of states have passed legislation to restrict the sales of soda and candy in schools. While that may help, without corresponding education, kids, being kids, will simply get their goodies elsewhere, points out Susan Finn, former president of the American Dietetic Association. The better approach, Finn advises, is to teach children to make better choices and moderate how much they eat.

Schools also can play a big part in getting kids to become more active, says Finn, who currently is chairman of the American Council for Fitness and Nutrition, a group representing food and beverage industry organizations and some consumer groups. Illinois, she says, is the only state that still requires physical education from kindergarten through 12th grade - a sorry testament to sedentary living.

Some food and beverage companies are working on healthier alternatives. But the industry clearly needs to do much more and radically change its advertising strategy to boot.

And perhaps most important: Three-fourths of what we eat is still consumed at home, according to Finn, which means parents have a huge responsibility to monitor what and how much their kids eat, as well as how much they sit around. The best teaching tool parents have at their disposal is to practice what they preach.

From the Aug. 19, 2003 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel