[Mb-civic] Why obesity is winning - Derrick Z. Jackson - The Boston Globe

[William Swiggard]

<>Why obesity is winning

By Derrick Z. Jackson  |  August 19, 2005 - The Boston Globe

NATIONAL PUBLIC Radio, which Republicans love to flog for ''liberal 
bias," began a discussion this week about gasoline conservation with: 
''When you go to McDonald's or Wendy's, park the car, get out, go in and 
buy your hamburger instead of sitting at the window, letting it idle."

How American. Get out of the car to save gas. I figure if that happened 
on the ''liberal airwaves," it demonstrates how junk-food marketeers 
have conquered the national psyche. This is ironic because the majority 
of major fast-food chains, including McDonald's, Wendy's, Burger King, 
Coca-Cola, Pizza Hut, Domino's, KFC, Taco Bell, and their lobbying arms, 
the National Restaurant Association and the American Beverage 
Association, give the vast majority of their political contributions to 
GOP causes. They are the very causes that keep trying to deep-six NPR 
and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Since 1990, the food and 
beverage industry and its executives have given $247 million to 
Republicans and $110 million to Democrats.

More important, the politicians do the industy's bidding to enact bans 
on obesity lawsuits, defeat or water down attempts to provide healthier 
meals and drinks in schools, and decry any limitations to marketing. The 
National Restaurant Association, with GOP Senators Mitch McConnell of 
Kentucky, Rick Santorum and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, and John 
Cornyn of Texas in its pocket, held a press conference in June at which 
NRA president Steven Anderson said food establishments ''should not be 
blamed for issues of personal responsibility and freedom of choice."

The rhetoric of ''choice" is meant to obscure obesity's 112,000 deaths a 
year, according to the Centers for Disease Control. That is nearly three 
times more than the toll from drugs and alcohol. The toll is sure to 
worsen as adult obesity has doubled since 1980 to 30 percent. The direct 
heathcare costs of obesity have zoomed from $52 billion in 1995 to $75 
billion in 2003. The healthcare costs are half that of those attributed 
to smoking, and the gap is closing.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/08/19/why_obesity_is_winning/

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