IM NOT FAT! IM BIG BONED!

Why subsidize anything?

With all of the caterwalling about "corporate welfare"....

All you wish to do is turn the gravy train on someone else, again, at the expense of the taxpayer....remember him....the taxpayer?

Well, I can't find the study itself in the journal, but a reader over the Dish points out that the 2030 extrapolation number is linear, of all things. So I guess in 2050 the obesity rate in America will be over 100%.

Did El Viajero just write something I actually agree with?

I'm sure we have somewhat different reasons and motives because I'm against corporate welfare but not to lower total government expenditures, I'd just rather see that money invested elsewhere. If you level the playing field for all agro-business by removing subsidies then that should create many of the dietary shifts you're talking about and then you can use that money to invest in education and awareness programs around diet or use the money to directly subsidize the poor (as opposed to all consumers) to buy healthier foods at lower cost.

The one caveat I have with regards to subsidization is when you're trying to spark a change that you know can survive on the free market with a little bit of a push (like wind energy) then I'm fine with subsidies helping it get to the point where its competetive on its own.

"Based on current trends" is the biggest weasel phrase out there. When does anything just follow one trend from now to forever?

If we just took back all the money that flows into unhealthy foods (both in subsidies and tax breaks/loopholes) and applied instead to healthy foods, that would pretty much do the entire trick. In fact, I suspect that Ezra would be ecstatic to endorse a proposal that took half the money away from high-fructose corn syrup et al and redirected it towards wiser agriculture. Then you could use the other half to cut taxes.

Given the inherent budget neutrality of this proposal, how do you feel about it, El Viajero?

Also, the BMI indices are totally borked. They claim I should weight 170 pounds instead of the 225 I do. While 225 is over what I would like to weigh, I no more want to weigh 170 than I do 255. I would be authentically unhealthy at that weight.

I havea 6'7" friend who runs around 350 or so, depending on his activity level the last few months. BMI says he should weigh 220. He'd be dead before he reached 220 pounds.

People could heat their houses and perhaps build up energy credits by riding a stationary bike or walking on a tread mill hooked up to a generator linked to the grid. The energy wasted at the gym is mind boggling!

Solve both the energy and obesity crisis at once

Calorie counts could be useful (though there are lots of implementation problems). I went to Nathan's at Coney Island the other day, where they now have a list of calorie estimates up next to the menu. The buffalo wing combo is... 3008 calories. Jesus H. You always hear this line that "well, everyone already knows Big Macs & junk food are bad for you." Which, yeah, they do. But THREE THOUSAND EIGHT? I would not have guessed anywhere near that high. I got a hot dog instead.

"9 out of 20"

9 out of 10, actually.

irrelevant bitching about bmi, just as Ezra predicted....different factions of the left constantly squabble on this issue. how bout a deal--get rid of all the high-fructose corn syrup and then promise to respect those who are still fat?

How 'bout all of the horribly destructive corporate welfare in giving juicy tax credits (dollar for dollar reductions of taxes)in supporting corn ethanol as Obama has steadfastly promoted?

In one fell swoop, he supports high food costs that causes millions to fall into poverty worldwide and, at the same time, promotes more corn for high frutose corn syrup that makes people obese.

Really nice there, Barry. Good job

Ezra you get absurd when you get into this topic. No wonder you lose the blue collar democrats.

I will not repeat what others have pointed out about straight line projections.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/06/AR2007110601436.html?hpid=topnews
Being Overweight Isn't All Bad, Study Says
Carrying Excess Pounds Does Not Increase Risk of Dying from Cancer or Heart Disease, Researchers Say

Being overweight boosts the risk of dying from diabetes and kidney disease but not cancer or heart disease, and carrying some extra pounds actually appears to protect against a host of other causes of death, federal researchers reported yesterday.

The counterintuitive findings, based on a detailed analysis of decades of government data about more than 39,000 Americans, supports the conclusions of a study the same group did two years ago that suggested the dangers of being overweight may be less dire than experts thought.

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VIDEO | Overweight Risks Are Complex

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"The take-home message is that the relationship between fat and mortality is more complicated than we tend to think," said Katherine M. Flegal, a senior research scientist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, who led the study. "It's not a cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all situation, where excess weight just increases your mortality risk for any and all causes of death."

The study, published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association, was greeted with sharply mixed reactions. Some praised it for providing persuasive evidence that the dangers of fat have been overblown.

"What this tells us is the hazards have been very much exaggerated," said Steven N. Blair, a professor of exercise science, epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of South Carolina. "It's just not as big a problem as people have said."

Obesity trends in the US

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2675sU3xWto

If you thought Statins were big, just wait for the Exercise Pill to hit. It works in mice and will make whoever gets it out first richer than God.

I'd like to believe that there is some way to get people to eat better and exercise, but a "magic pill" is our most likely solution given the current incentives in health care.

The buffalo wing combo is... 3008 calories.

That's crazy. I just found out that Panera has a coffee drink that has over 700 calories and half of your daily fat. That should be illegal. At the very least, it should have to come in a cup that lists its calorie content in 20-point font.

I just read a proposal in JAMA to have calorie information at point of service in restaurants. When you ordered that panera coffee drink, next to the price, it would give you the calorie count. That seems like the right idea to me. My guess is that people totally underestimate the calories they expend on stuff like this.

i think that the numbers of diet drinks and products laced with sugar substitutes , consumed by people trying to lose weight, also cannot be good for their health.
many people, trying to lose weight, fill the hungry spaces in their day with multiple diet sodas of all kinds, sugar free gum...and worse, dairy creamers that are chemical soups.
...and many of these artificial sweeteners are in products that children consume all of the time.
i have not looked into studies of these products...but i cant imagine that any of this is in any way beneficial to the human body,especially in the amounts that many people consume them on a daily basis.
the intense, artificially heightened sweetness takes us even further away from the tastes of living food.
many of these diet products, in addition to being chemical creations, dont seem to help people to lose weight.

I hear soylent green is a healthy low-cal alternative to junk food. (And plentiful!)

charles

soylent green wafers...
hmm...
are they on aisle six next to the fried pig rinds, diet iced tea and viennese hazelnut frappe coffee creamer?

I just spent two months in London and lost 25 pounds. Made absolutely no effort to diet or workout. Drank beer every day. In America, ever since the end of high school sports, I've struggled with weight and dieting to no avail. London was great because 1) I had to walk everywhere and 2) I did not have such easy access to cheap pantry food or fast food. You can make walking or biking easier and more thrifty due to rising gas prices, but I think suburban and driving culture is simply too ingrained in 97 percent of America locales to make any difference.

It's true, the problem is that no amount of money will make those healthy things taste good.

Folks, Gary Taubes, award-winning science writer, has conclusively shown that for nearly all people, what drives obesity is the amount of carbs you eat. I know it's not intuitively obvious, but what really goes on is that the carbs drive insulin, which drives hunger, which gets us to eat more. Then, as we get fat, the fat cells also drive insulin.

Please, please, please, read Taube's "Good Calories, Bad Calories". It's extraordinary.

Or, at least, take a look at one of these videos of Taube's lecturing:

Here's a lecture that presents it all in about an hour, and another:

Stevens Institute of Technology:

http://weightoftheevidence.blogspot.com/2008/02/gary-taubes.html

Berkely:

http://webcast.berkeley.edu/stream.php?type=real&webcastid=21216

The right to choose only goes so far with progressives.

my body, my choice!

@jacqueline there is no good science that show harm to health from eating sugar substitues.

@vorkosigan1 I am a fan of Gary Taubes but he has not conclusively shown that for nearly all people, what drives obesity is the amount of carbs you eat. He thinks that might prove out but as of yet we do not know.

@El Viajero
Excelent video.

floccina-

fair enough; call that my gloss on Taubes. Still, who else out there is saying anything even close to Taubes?

Also, take a look at the videos, and see what you think then about Taubes's position....

Paul L., it never ceases to fascinate me how modern conservatism has made a virtue out of ignorance and a claims that knowledge enslavement.

Merely pointing out the existence of a problem is enough to get conservative hackles up. I have to conclude that conservatism is nothing more than an affectation adopted by those who wish that their ignorance not be perturbed by those who actually study things.