Reflections on America's horrendous diet

After watching this evening's edition of World News Tonight on ABC, I was frightened to learn that Burger King has just unveiled a new 730-calorie breakfast sandwich. Judging from Burger King's website, with its flashy promotional campaign already up and running, they have joined the ranks of fast-food franchises, such as Hardee's, that have little shame in regards to their customers. With something like 2/3 of Americans obese as it is, why exactly do we need another monster product dished up with fries (or hash browns in this case)?

Of course, many Americans may put forth the personal freedom arguement. "It's my body and I can do whatever I want with it!" Fast-food companies play off of this too, putting a variety of options on the menu to further the concept of "consumer choice." Unfortunately, this statement is a contradiction of sorts when one considers that we all have to pay for health insurance. Dr. McDougall of TravelWizard.com wrote a very good article (I suggest you skim it, it is long but it contains some very good points) about how "responsible" Americans are paying for the actions of their fellow citizens that are choosing to wreck their bodies. I think he summed it up pretty well in this sentence:

Personally, I am tired of paying for someone else’s irresponsibility; drunks, smokers, and people who choose to be unhealthy by eating like royalty and failing to exercise, must no longer be allowed to put this financial burden on the “responsible minority.”

Amen to that.

So obviously people are aware of the problem, but how to go about fixing it is a whole 'nother ballgame. In June of last year, apparently there was a summit on obesity that attempted to address the issue in a concise manner. The only problem is there was little that could be agreed on in terms of where to put pressure points. Here are a few excerpts that caught my eye:

What is the role of government? We don’t all see eye-to-eye that that one either. Many here were disappointed to hear Secretary Thompson stress personal responsibility over government leadership. They were disappointed that his department’s initiatives were mainly small, low-budget steps, such as underfunded PSA programs, rather than big well-funded actions. And we just heard that there’s only a pathetic $2.7 million budget behind the department responsible for giving us the U.S. Dietary Guidelines and Food Pyramid program.

We heard about extraordinary nutritional overhauls going on in the schools of Texas, a state with a very high obesity rate, and those changes reflect the effort of one government official: state agricultural commissioner Susan Combs. She has shown what strong government leadership can do.

Speaking of the Health Insurance Industry

We heard about a promising new pilot program from Aetna called Healthy Body, Healthy Weight, that breaks new ground in helping overweight patients and reimbursing primary care doctors for time spent on this. We heard suggestions to build financial incentives into our health insurance systems so that companies and individuals reap benefits from changing to a healthier lifestyle, diet and weight. How about a pilot program on that?

So basically, there is a lot that needs to be addressed. Let's just hope that America (in whatever form, socially or politically) faces this problem head-on before it's too late.