We're too fat, so the days of cheap fast-food may be numbered

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Saturday, November 21, 2009

New Media editor Don Fenley casts a big net for hidden gems about and behind the news

We're too fat, so the days of cheap fast-food may be numbered

Published Wednesday, September 16 2009 - (0) Comments

America is too fat and not in step with a leaner and meaner future that's coming whether we like it or not.

You don't have to look any further than the health care reform brouhaha to see why I'm saying that.

Not even the roar of the partisan rhetoric from the left and right can drown out the persistent message that we're spending more money treating the results of lousy life choices than from fighting disease, and patching people up from accidents and wars.

Here's an illustrative info bite on the topic compliments of the U.S. Department of Agriculture: Healthier diets could prevent at least $71 billion per year in medical costs, lost productivity and lost lives.

Here's another one from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention: If all inactive Americans became active, we would save $77 billion in annual medical costs.

And the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development chimes in with this: The U.S. is the most obese nation in the world with more than 30 percent of the population being significantly overweight.

In a way it's shades of the early days of Surgeon General Terry's campaign against smoking. His warning about the health evils of tobacco were denied, laughed at and dumped on by the tobacco lobby, politicians and much of the public for decades. But the truth eventually won out over culture and politics. Thirty or so years later most people don't smoke and those who do are increasingly ostracized for it.

Nowadays smokers are slowly edging toward the ranks of drug abusers as a growing number of employers say "thanks but no thanks" to hiring those who need smoke breaks. And there's signs that the folks with a hefty Body Mass Index number may be headed for the same fate.

Of course, there's a lot of blame fixing, finger pointing and posturing that has to happen before much about of the fast-food culture changes. But, if we use history as an indicator of the future you can look for more than just talk about taxes on soft drinks - remember high fructose corn syrup is from the Devil - and special fees - aka taxes - on the fast foods for health eating education programs.

The media drum beat that precedes such thing is growing louder and louder.

Stories about better health equals better choices are coming at an almost daily rate. Ditto for the fast-food horror stories The Not-So-Happy Mean: What's Really in Fast Food?. That one gives new meaning to the jokes about, "give me a burger, and make it quick. It's for a cop."

Just how long it will take for the fast food culture that has helped super sized America to become road kill on the better health highway is anybody's guess. What doesn't require much guess work is how it will happen.

Buckle you seat belt, and be prepared to cinch it up a few notches. The battle has begun.

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