Peter Jennings Fails to Help Viewers Understand Obesity
December 19, 2003
More Americans are more overweight than ever before, and the trend is worst among our young people. Peter Jennings had a whole hour of national network TV time last week to talk about this important and growing problem. What did Mr. Jennings tell America about this impending danger?
He said it’s not our fault that we eat too much and exercise too little. He blamed government farm subsidies for making food too cheap and corporations for whetting our appetites.
In the most affluent society in the world’s history, Mr. Jennings thinks we can make people thin by making food too expensive for us to overeat.
Bad news, Mr. Jennings. We’re too rich for that solution. In the past 30 years, America’s per capita incomes have more than doubled. Meanwhile, thanks to science, the real cost of food continued to decline as it has for 200 years. Americans now spend less than 10 percent of their family incomes on food-including restaurant meals. (In the Philippines, it’s 50 percent.)
How much would a bag of pet food have to cost before we’d shortchange even our dogs or cats on their dinners?
Worse news, Mr. Jennings. Food would be even cheaper if the government didn’t subsidize farmers. The one proven result of our farm subsidies is to raise farm land costs. Farmers love to buy land, and when the subsidies go up, they bid for the 80 acres next door sure that the government in effect is guaranteeing their mortgage. I’m against the farm subsidies, but not because they make food cheaper; they don’t.
As for corporations tempting us, I can tell you from walking down streets in Third World countries that McDonald’s TV ads are nowhere near as appetite-inspiring as the delicious odors that come from the charcoal braziers of the street food vendors. The food being cooked by an old lady in a canal boat in Thailand smelled so good that I almost bought some-even though I saw the cook rinsing her hands in the filthy water of the canal.
Let’s face it, we’re susceptible to anything that stirs our appetites: pictures, odors, or the family cook saying, “Come and get it!” Worse, humanity evolved amid scarcity and food shortages, so our bodies always tell us to eat while the food is there to be had. Our bodies even defend the added weight once we’ve put it on, because they hate to give up hard- won ‘reserves,’ just in case there is a famine coming.
We’re the first people in history who can afford to overeat every day. And this comes just at the moment when we no longer need to do much hard, physical work. I grew up on a dairy farm, hoisting hay bales, emptying sacks of feed, carrying 85-lb milk cans, and pushing a hand cultivator through the big family garden. Hardly anyone has to do that kind of physical work any more-including me. Our kids get bussed to school, play video games instead of baseball, and watch TV for hours per day.
Data from the Centers for Disease Control indicate that in the past 20 years, the calorie intake of American kids has risen only about one percent-and that’s in line with their increased heights. The big change is that they now get 13 percent less exercise!
The President’s Council on Physical Fitness says only about half of American adults engage in daily physical activity-and one-fourth of the young people report no vigorous physical activity at all.
What a service Peter Jennings could have performed for the American people by saying, “Hey, we have a serious problem. We need a new health ethic that stresses eating less and/or getting more exercise. Let’s seek out more vigorous pleasures that can enjoyably take the place of the hunting, gathering, and hand hoeing we no longer have to do.”
Instead, Jennings played a silly blame game that has no chance of constructively lowering American obesity.
Unfortunately, lots of Americas were watching their TVs instead of roller skating that night. Let’s hope Mr. Jennings helps his national audience more effectively on this issue in the future.
Posted in Commentary |