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Economic impact of overweight and obesity to surpass $4 trillion in 10 years
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It's location dependent of course, but I think we're used to seeing people in the overweight range, even low obese, and don't register that a lot of people are technically obese. When I was obese (class 1, so low in that range), I mentioned to one of my health care providers that I was obese. She argued with me! I told her to do the math. I was right.
Just for illustration (and maybe a bit of fun),here are some anonymized photos from my 1970 high school year book, 2 from gym class (just a random selection of average boys playing basketball), one of the quite-successful wrestling team. I know the photos are bad, photo tech was not so fab, and these are photos of photos. But even in the bad photos, it's pretty clear that the gym class boys are pretty skinny kids by current standards, and even the successful wrestling team members aren't exactly hyper-muscular or very thick. Would current equivalents look doughier? The ones I meet sure do.
Yes, these are the kids whose school lunch included gravy as an entree.
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In my office today someone brought in butter tarts. All the overweight people dove. into them like vultures on roadkill. This is part of the problem.
BTW I had none of them... lol2 -
I think that obesity is a lot like climate change. They're both huge problems that need to be addressed, but individual impact feels very small and it often feels like shouting into the wind when no matter how much broccoli you buy, someone else is going to keep buying Ho-Ho cakes.
Ugh, you’re so right, they’re just SO huge, and I realize that by posting 4 trillion and 1/2 the planet now makes it feel even more unattainable and impersonal. I apologize for the doom and gloom here, not my intention tbh. Why would anyone change if they feel like what they do doesn’t matter or that it’s not their problem? The people that don’t think this way are likely not the people we have to worry about. And the people that do are the ones that will either do whatever they want despite the impact or don’t know how to find a solution. Like you said, shouting in the wind
If we discussed our personal challenges here, I would see this thread going better. Like, “this is what I struggle with. I have 70 lbs to lose and don’t know how to figure this out. This is my biggest challenge”. Perhaps if we focused on this line of questioning we could have more productive and impactful conversation as a whole.
I posed those personal questions on my first post but they are easy to ignore with the headline, I see that now. But, it’s the debate forum, and I don’t mind seeing where this thing goes either. Obviously, I want it to be helpful or at the very least insightful.
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I think that obesity is a lot like climate change. They're both huge problems that need to be addressed, but individual impact feels very small and it often feels like shouting into the wind when no matter how much broccoli you buy, someone else is going to keep buying Ho-Ho cakes.
Ugh, you’re so right, they’re just SO huge, and I realize that by posting 4 trillion and 1/2 the planet now makes it feel even more unattainable and impersonal. I apologize for the doom and gloom here, not my intention tbh. Why would anyone change if they feel like what they do doesn’t matter or that it’s not their problem? The people that don’t think this way are likely not the people we have to worry about. And the people that do are the ones that will either do whatever they want despite the impact or don’t know how to find a solution. Like you said, shouting in the wind
If we discussed our personal challenges here, I would see this thread going better. Like, “this is what I struggle with. I have 70 lbs to lose and don’t know how to figure this out. This is my biggest challenge”. Perhaps if we focused on this line of questioning we could have more productive and impactful conversation as a whole.
I posed those personal questions on my first post but they are easy to ignore with the headline, I see that now. But, it’s the debate forum, and I don’t mind seeing where this thing goes either. Obviously, I want it to be helpful or at the very least insightful.
Isn't the bolded kind of what we do in a lot of sections of the Community, day in and day out?
Would people who are struggling be more likely to read a debate thread like this than those kinds of threads?0 -
Yes and no. The core of the discussion is the impact each of us is making on the impending 4 Trillion investment from every taxpayer and the impending health decline of our communities. The productive part, in theory, is one thread where we could collectively confront our personal challenges and every experience shared would be on topic. And, of course, highlighting that this isn’t just a personal problem, this is so much more than that.
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xbowhunter wrote: »In my office today someone brought in butter tarts. All the overweight people dove. into them like vultures on roadkill. This is part of the problem.
BTW I had none of them... lol
I’m on a 7 hour road trip currently, lots of car time, and we stopped off for gas. I noticed in front of the gas station was a pink swing set, I thought, awe how cute! Then I realized the back of the swings were giant donuts and the top of the swing set said Dunkin Doughnuts. They’re winning by war of attrition. What looks like such a small and kind gesture are the seeds of submission.2 -
It's location dependent of course, but I think we're used to seeing people in the overweight range, even low obese, and don't register that a lot of people are technically obese. When I was obese (class 1, so low in that range), I mentioned to one of my health care providers that I was obese. She argued with me! I told her to do the math. I was right.
Just for illustration (and maybe a bit of fun),here are some anonymized photos from my 1970 high school year book, 2 from gym class (just a random selection of average boys playing basketball), one of the quite-successful wrestling team. I know the photos are bad, photo tech was not so fab, and these are photos of photos. But even in the bad photos, it's pretty clear that the gym class boys are pretty skinny kids by current standards, and even the successful wrestling team members aren't exactly hyper-muscular or very thick. Would current equivalents look doughier? The ones I meet sure do.
Yes, these are the kids whose school lunch included gravy as an entree.
Growing up I would hear, you’re fine, Marylin Monroe was a size 12! Turns out, I’m currently a size 2-4 and because of vanity sizing my measurements are still bigger than hers. This is after losing 40 lbs years ago, and the last 15-20 lbs this last year. The bar is currently on the floor.1 -
Yes and no. The core of the discussion is the impact each of us is making on the impending 4 Trillion investment from every taxpayer and the impending health decline of our communities. The productive part, in theory, is one thread where we could collectively confront our personal challenges and every experience shared would be on topic. And, of course, highlighting that this isn’t just a personal problem, this is so much more than that.
I don’t think any of us can do much more than opine here without a link to the source of the claim here.1 -
MargaretYakoda wrote: »Yes and no. The core of the discussion is the impact each of us is making on the impending 4 Trillion investment from every taxpayer and the impending health decline of our communities. The productive part, in theory, is one thread where we could collectively confront our personal challenges and every experience shared would be on topic. And, of course, highlighting that this isn’t just a personal problem, this is so much more than that.
I don’t think any of us can do much more than opine here without a link to the source of the claim here.
https://stop.publichealth.gwu.edu/LFD-oct23#:~:text=Obesity continues to have a,surpass $4 trillion by 2035.
https://www.worldobesity.org/news/economic-impact-of-overweight-and-obesity-to-surpass-4-trillion-by-2035
https://www.iqvia.com/blogs/2024/02/2024-the-obesity-markets-inflection-point
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The challenge of educating the public when powerful interests control the narrative on just about every level is going to be a challenge. The change is going to have to happen through the individuals that seek solutions to their own health situations where grassroot movements grow exponentially and mostly through community and social media. I don't see any other way.
Low carb, ketogenic and carnivore is a growing community and where thousands of doctors around the world have opened clinics specifically to address the obesity epidemic, because that is exactly what it is and they found they could no longer in good faith continue to push the agenda of conventional medicine, and they are changing peoples lives, getting them off all medications and reversing or stopping most of the non communicable diseases that account for ever increasing health bill. Why the doctors are doing this is because millions of people have been doing that exact thing for the last 20 years with good results. This is how it starts, imo.2 -
neanderthin wrote: »The challenge of educating the public when powerful interests control the narrative on just about every level is going to be a challenge. The change is going to have to happen through the individuals that seek solutions to their own health situations where grassroot movements grow exponentially and mostly through community and social media. I don't see any other way.
Low carb, ketogenic and carnivore is a growing community and where thousands of doctors around the world have opened clinics specifically to address the obesity epidemic, because that is exactly what it is and they found they could no longer in good faith continue to push the agenda of conventional medicine, and they are changing peoples lives, getting them off all medications and reversing or stopping most of the non communicable diseases that account for ever increasing health bill. Why the doctors are doing this is because millions of people have been doing that exact thing for the last 20 years with good results. This is how it starts, imo.
This is kinda the point I was trying to make but maybe it was misunderstood in wording.
The argument is every individual is responsible for what they consume, which is fair. The issue is not everyone has the correct tools to make the right choices, even though they may want the best.
For example. Growing up were told milk is great for us, we need calcium yada yada. What were not told is most of us will naturally become lactose intolerant. Imagine consuming something every day that does not agree with you and you don't even realise.2 -
Instinctively as an animal, our first and foremost survival instinct is food and water consumption. I mean if we didn't have distractions like work, internet, etc., then looking for food, water and shelter would be our first priority along with protection of our family.
So it's no wonder for many food is on our minds almost 16 hours or more of the day. And of course if it's easily accessible and tastes good (taste of things bitter, bad, etc. was how early man determined through trial and error if it was edible and consumable) instinct tells us to consume good amounts of it to help with survival. Our bodies really haven't changed in thousands of years so storing fat is really easy and giving it up isn't. Eat in a surplus we gain weight and because the majority of people DON'T count calories in the world, it's so easy to go over.
Also, being fat was a sign of being well of financial back in the day. In some cultures this still exists.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 35+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
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Posting this without stating or implying an opinion about it, other than saying that it seems relevant to some points that have been raised earlier in the thread.
https://www.usda.gov/media/press-releases/2024/04/24/biden-harris-administration-announces-new-school-meal-standards
Brief overview: New standards for school meals, which include limiting added sugars and sodium. Implementation timeline 2025-20273 -
sollyn23l2 wrote: »MargaretYakoda wrote: »sollyn23l2 wrote: »MargaretYakoda wrote: »SafariGalNYC wrote: »A big impact could come from changing the menus of public school lunches and offering nutrition classes.
I taught in public and private schools in NYC for a while - I remember the huge difference in what was offered for lunch.
This was a part of my wake up call. Such a disparity in the quality of food.
The board of ed still has their menus online - they offer pizza, chicken nuggets, mozzarella sticks, fries. There are also salad offerings but these are paired with tubs of high sugar, hi cal dressings and as a compliment to the mains above.
When I taught in a very high end private high school (tuition >$50k per year) the cafeteria was like 4 star dining. They did not offer anything they did not deem “healthy”. Lunches were salmon, chicken breast, lean proteins , all shades of vegetables. No soda or fruit juice allowed. No added sugar, no fried foods.. no vending machines.
Is it economic? A tale of 2 cities?
We spend a fortune on public schools and the quickest way to make a change would be to change what’s offered in public school lunches. It’s just as easy to promote the cafeteria as a place of learning for the public schools as it is in the $$$ private schools.
Years ago when my kid was in elementary school we were on the free lunch program.
Which meant we were also entitled to the free breakfast program.
The teachers pestered me constantly about making sure my kid was on time for the free breakfast, and I politely but firmly refused. I saw two things happening there.
1) The breakfasts were disgusting. Sunny Delight (which is not orange juice!) Pop Tarts, and donuts. Not even milk and cereal. Forget about a healthy bowl of oatmeal!
And the kids only had about 15 minutes total to wolf it down.
A lifetime of bad habits, brought to you by the American Public School System.
2) Unlike the lunches, everyone was able to see who got the free breakfast. Marking those kids as an obvious underclass. Which absolutely did skew the perception of others. Especially other parents. Which, in a small town, has an impact beyond just the school system.
In second grade my kid - completely on their own - decided to become a vegetarian. Keep in mind we were still on the free lunch program.
Our school at the time was unified. Three buildings on one campus. The same staff providing all breakfasts and lunches for Head Start through High School.
And I informed the cafeteria staff that my kid would need vegetarian meals. I had a lot of discussions with them about this. And was assured that my kid would be provided a proper lunch.
But my kid was coming home very hungry every day.
Turns out the cafeteria staff was refusing to accommodate the vegetarian kid. Like, just flat refusing. My kid would be served milk and a slice of bread. Just that. Every day. For months
I was livid. But I was nice to their faces. I tried to reason with them. I asked if there were other vegetarian students and was told only at the high school. “There are no vegetarian students in the elementary school”
I pointed out that there was at least one…. That went over pretty badly. 🤣
I asked why they were able to feed the vegetarian high school kids but not provide for the vegetarian grade school students and I even offered to provide veggie burger patties for them to feed my kid on days when they had hamburgers. The cafeteria people just flat refused to provide the legally mandated meals my kid was entitled to.
I resorted to packing my kid a cold lunch, even though it was another strain on our budget.
Fast forward a couple years and the local soda bottling plant donated a scoreboard to the high school. Which caused a bit of an uproar because, despite what I just described, we’re a relatively prosperous area and there’s a lot of people who are the sort who try to limit their kid’s exposure to advertising, and their sugar consumption, etc. Typical Hippie Crunchy Granola middle class stuff.
Because it was the soda bottling plant that donated the sign, some parents had a lot of questions. And many learned for the first time that there are soda machines at the high school. Which the cafeteria people were not concerned with because “the biggest seller is water!” (I pointed out that there’s free water in the filtered fountain 30 feet away but… )
Anyway. At this extremely energized school board meeting the head cafeteria staff said “I don’t care. If we got Mars Bars for free, we would serve them to these kids every day!”
I thought that was one heckuva admission….
Anyway. That’s a lot of words for “We have a lot of work to do to get the US on to a healthy path”
I'm not sure where you live, but in the school districts I work in, they only accommodate medically required diets, not dietary preferences. We are up front with parents about this and they have to go to the doctor and get a medical statement that their child requires a specific diet for an allergy or whatever medical condition. Outside of that, parents have to send a lynch in with the child if they don't want them to eat a certain food. And yes, I've had to tell vegetarian parents this. Unfortunately, it's just not plausible to accommodate all dietary preferences in a school system.
1) They told me that they would accommodate a vegetarian diet
And then they just fed my kid a single slice of bread and a carton of milk.
2) They were feeding the vegetarian high school students.
Generally free meals are not offered in high school. High schoolers have to pay. Does the high school offer free meals where you are at? Just curious. Things always work a bit differently in different locations. And I agree that they should never have told you they could accommodate a vegetarian diet given that they were unable to do so.
I don't think that's true:National School Lunch Program
The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) provides low-cost or free lunches to children and operates in nearly 100,000 public and nonprofit private schools (grades Pre-Kindergarten–12) and residential child care institutions.
https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/child-nutrition-programs/national-school-lunch-program/#:~:text=The National School Lunch Program,and residential child care institutions.
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lynn_glenmont wrote: »sollyn23l2 wrote: »MargaretYakoda wrote: »sollyn23l2 wrote: »MargaretYakoda wrote: »SafariGalNYC wrote: »A big impact could come from changing the menus of public school lunches and offering nutrition classes.
I taught in public and private schools in NYC for a while - I remember the huge difference in what was offered for lunch.
This was a part of my wake up call. Such a disparity in the quality of food.
The board of ed still has their menus online - they offer pizza, chicken nuggets, mozzarella sticks, fries. There are also salad offerings but these are paired with tubs of high sugar, hi cal dressings and as a compliment to the mains above.
When I taught in a very high end private high school (tuition >$50k per year) the cafeteria was like 4 star dining. They did not offer anything they did not deem “healthy”. Lunches were salmon, chicken breast, lean proteins , all shades of vegetables. No soda or fruit juice allowed. No added sugar, no fried foods.. no vending machines.
Is it economic? A tale of 2 cities?
We spend a fortune on public schools and the quickest way to make a change would be to change what’s offered in public school lunches. It’s just as easy to promote the cafeteria as a place of learning for the public schools as it is in the $$$ private schools.
Years ago when my kid was in elementary school we were on the free lunch program.
Which meant we were also entitled to the free breakfast program.
The teachers pestered me constantly about making sure my kid was on time for the free breakfast, and I politely but firmly refused. I saw two things happening there.
1) The breakfasts were disgusting. Sunny Delight (which is not orange juice!) Pop Tarts, and donuts. Not even milk and cereal. Forget about a healthy bowl of oatmeal!
And the kids only had about 15 minutes total to wolf it down.
A lifetime of bad habits, brought to you by the American Public School System.
2) Unlike the lunches, everyone was able to see who got the free breakfast. Marking those kids as an obvious underclass. Which absolutely did skew the perception of others. Especially other parents. Which, in a small town, has an impact beyond just the school system.
In second grade my kid - completely on their own - decided to become a vegetarian. Keep in mind we were still on the free lunch program.
Our school at the time was unified. Three buildings on one campus. The same staff providing all breakfasts and lunches for Head Start through High School.
And I informed the cafeteria staff that my kid would need vegetarian meals. I had a lot of discussions with them about this. And was assured that my kid would be provided a proper lunch.
But my kid was coming home very hungry every day.
Turns out the cafeteria staff was refusing to accommodate the vegetarian kid. Like, just flat refusing. My kid would be served milk and a slice of bread. Just that. Every day. For months
I was livid. But I was nice to their faces. I tried to reason with them. I asked if there were other vegetarian students and was told only at the high school. “There are no vegetarian students in the elementary school”
I pointed out that there was at least one…. That went over pretty badly. 🤣
I asked why they were able to feed the vegetarian high school kids but not provide for the vegetarian grade school students and I even offered to provide veggie burger patties for them to feed my kid on days when they had hamburgers. The cafeteria people just flat refused to provide the legally mandated meals my kid was entitled to.
I resorted to packing my kid a cold lunch, even though it was another strain on our budget.
Fast forward a couple years and the local soda bottling plant donated a scoreboard to the high school. Which caused a bit of an uproar because, despite what I just described, we’re a relatively prosperous area and there’s a lot of people who are the sort who try to limit their kid’s exposure to advertising, and their sugar consumption, etc. Typical Hippie Crunchy Granola middle class stuff.
Because it was the soda bottling plant that donated the sign, some parents had a lot of questions. And many learned for the first time that there are soda machines at the high school. Which the cafeteria people were not concerned with because “the biggest seller is water!” (I pointed out that there’s free water in the filtered fountain 30 feet away but… )
Anyway. At this extremely energized school board meeting the head cafeteria staff said “I don’t care. If we got Mars Bars for free, we would serve them to these kids every day!”
I thought that was one heckuva admission….
Anyway. That’s a lot of words for “We have a lot of work to do to get the US on to a healthy path”
I'm not sure where you live, but in the school districts I work in, they only accommodate medically required diets, not dietary preferences. We are up front with parents about this and they have to go to the doctor and get a medical statement that their child requires a specific diet for an allergy or whatever medical condition. Outside of that, parents have to send a lynch in with the child if they don't want them to eat a certain food. And yes, I've had to tell vegetarian parents this. Unfortunately, it's just not plausible to accommodate all dietary preferences in a school system.
1) They told me that they would accommodate a vegetarian diet
And then they just fed my kid a single slice of bread and a carton of milk.
2) They were feeding the vegetarian high school students.
Generally free meals are not offered in high school. High schoolers have to pay. Does the high school offer free meals where you are at? Just curious. Things always work a bit differently in different locations. And I agree that they should never have told you they could accommodate a vegetarian diet given that they were unable to do so.
I don't think that's true:National School Lunch Program
The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) provides low-cost or free lunches to children and operates in nearly 100,000 public and nonprofit private schools (grades Pre-Kindergarten–12) and residential child care institutions.
https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/child-nutrition-programs/national-school-lunch-program/#:~:text=The National School Lunch Program,and residential child care institutions.
Interesting. That's why I asked.0 -
Japan's school lunch program wouldn't work in NA I suspect, mostly for cultural reasons but it certainly is pretty interesting, known as kyushoku
https://youtu.be/fze5s1SlqB82 -
I don't think "educate the public" really leads anywhere, wonderful though it sounds.
I'd bet that a fair fraction of people whose eating style is high in fast food and ultra-processed foods know deep in their hearts and minds that they're not making the most health-promoting choices. If they don't, given the amount of coverage in curricula, news media, social media and more, I suspect their heads are so far in the sand that public education can't penetrate.
They have reasons they eat the way they do. Maybe we'd call some of the reasons excuses or rationalizations. I don't know. (It gets pretty individual and diverse when we try to pick on the "why".)
I'm also not saying we should stop spending money on trying to educate the public. It leads some in a slightly better direction, and the information resources can help those who do care. But I don't think it really turns the whole ship much at the population level.
We tried public education for the dangers of smoking, excess alcohol consumption generally, drunk driving specifically, and probably myriad other public health problems. It had some effect, but limited.
There's been some progress on some of those, since my youth (1960s) if not recently. Of the ones I mentioned, I'm thinking of smoking and drunk driving. Those have definitely decreased substantially, even though arguably they could usefully decrease more. (Alcohol consumption is still pretty widespread, up and down, and I haven't seen stats for the pandemic period yet.)
I'm not saying I advocate these measures for dealing with obesity (I absolutely don't), but I honestly think what worked best for those problems was essentially prohibitions, much tightened regulation of sales, severe punishments (jail, fines, etc.) for violations (of regulations and laws), and forms of education plus regulation that engineered some social ostracism for people who did the undesired things.
I may be the one who set off some of the earlier "government can't tell me what to do" feelings by hinting at similar things upthread, without clarifying that I don't want to punish, fine, socially ostracize or do any such thing to people who are overweight or eat in ways that I personally wouldn't choose. I also don't want to use regulatory force to make people eat things they don't prefer to eat. (However, I'm OK with requiring publicly funded food, like school lunches, to meet some kind of nutritional standards. I'd also be OK with reductions in sugar production subsidies, for example.)
Saying that those more punitive strategies worked in other cases isn't endorsing using them in this case: That's part of the policy problem, from my perspective. Things that worked in other cases are unpalatable (heh) in this one, and things that are palatable don't have a great historical track record.
I still do believe that government unavoidably influences people via policy, so should acknowledge that and basically thoughtfully use those powers for good, including not over-controlling.
Just my opinions as always, and for emphasis, I'm not the OP here.1 -
We’re missing our version of Alain Ducasse, MLK Jr, our Candy Lightner, all individuals who cared about or loved something so much they created real passion or policy for change.
Sometimes the voice of an individual can be more influential than a group. Gandhi urged Hindus and Muslims to live peacefully together, and undertook a hunger strike until riots in Calcutta ceased, but because he was so loved by both communities- it worked. Even though the opinions of weight loss can be controversial, if a voice of reason can work for religion then it’s possible it can work for health.
It’s likely we’re living in a ‘too many cooks in the kitchen’ situation and we can’t get anything meaningful or productive done. Not to mention, people seem more confused than ever.
Going back to my example of Candy, she was the founder of MADD, mothers against drunk driving, and a big part of what she did was put the problem into images so we could see that this isn’t a personal problem, this is an everyone problem, and made it clear this could be you if things didn’t change.
Back then people felt some kind of way being told they have to wear a seat belt, they can’t drink and drive to relax after work, and I mean people were fuming. It felt like their rights were being taken away. But, with strong imagery, a name, something concrete that we can all understand, makes problems feel more personal.
Another example was the imagery of Debi Austin who was in a commercial where she was inhaling from a lit cigarette held to a hole in her throat. I think that made the biggest impact on my high school, more than any warning label on the cigarette box.
Imagery that I think we don’t see when we think of obesity is what Diabetes can do. We don’t see people being limited in their daily activities. We don’t see the struggle behind closed doors. We don’t see what kids have to go through when they have a massive target on their back everyday. We don’t see amputations and stacks of pill bottles. We only see the aesthetics of obesity and that’s the least of our concern.
The problem is simply this- obesity affects our health and our economy, two of the most important elements for the quality of life. And this <insert image of reality in 10 years or less> is what to expect. I say this because, tbh, I don’t have a clue what 4 Trillion dollars or what 1/2 the population being overweight and obese looks like. I don’t think most of us do.
The controversial part of course is that many people will feel this is in direct opposition to the body positivity movement. I personally don’t feel like these movements should be different. These should be cohesive campaigns- Healthy mind + Healthy body.
Just musings before coffee, typically either funny or random but we’ll see.1 -
It kind of makes me laugh to read what people say about the horrors of school lunches these days, frankly.
I don’t see why it’s a reach to think that American children should be offered the best of our food supply instead of the ultra processed options now in many schools. Especially low income public schools.
My examples were from my time teaching and they directly correlated with what it’s like when parents have economic power and say in their children lunches and when they don’t.
I never juxtaposed prior decades to now.. in fact, it’s pretty clear through your example that it’s always been sub par. Are we disagreeing about the quality of American school lunch and that we can do better?
US agriculture is a 1.3 trillion dollar enterprise.
Our kids should partake in that harvest and bounty.
Not only for better quality food, whole foods, but for starting life not dependent on hyper palatable, ultra processed food. This isn’t just for obesity but for overall health.
After the baby boom is when corporations were invited to bid on supplying school lunches.
Lobbyists then got involved decades later and that’s how we have pizza as a vegetable because of a schmear of tomato paste and pop tarts as whole grains.
One of the larger school lunch suppliers is Schwan’s . They are an active congressional lobbyist.
Here is their common US lunch pizza:
It’s full of omega 6 oils, protein product congealed out of soy, substitute cheese product congealed out of oil and casein, added sugar, salt, and fake food pressed together to pass for pizza.
Am I somehow in left field to think it’s “laughable” to think the worlds richest country with one of the largest agriculture systems on the planet can’t feed American school children a healthier whole food, option?
If we are talking about the cumulative health of a country, it’s a start.
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SafariGalNYC wrote: »
It kind of makes me laugh to read what people say about the horrors of school lunches these days, frankly.
I don’t see why it’s a reach to think that American children should be offered the best of our food supply instead of the ultra processed options now in many schools. Especially low income public schools.
Is that how what I wrote came across to you, that I think school lunches shouldn't be nutrient dense and calorie appropriate?
That's certainly not what I meant. The "makes me laugh" was about what I perceived as common assumptions (not necessarily your assumptions) about how well school children were fed in previous decades, and that there had been some deplorable decline since.
Ditto for general eating patterns. I feel like it's a common assumption (not necessarily your assumption) that back in the good old days everyone had plenty of nice fresh food. In at least some places, neither school nutrition nor general public nutrition was great, ever. It's been a problem, and it's still a problem.
What has changed, in a semi-positive way, is that in the US availability of school food, and especially availability of less stigmatized free food, has increased. Public school breakfasts didn't exist in any kind of pattern when I was in elementary school (piloted in 1966, permanent in 1975).
Good nutrition is what we should be striving for, absolutely, but just getting adequate calories is always the foundation. (Unfortunately, we now collectively got too many.)
Historically, hunger (food insecurity) has been a substantial problem in the US. It remains a problem, but since perhaps the 1930s there has been a general trajectory in public policy to try to improve that. Has it been effective? Mixed. Certainly not consistently. Probably better with calorie adequacy than nutritional adequacy.
Since the 1980s (as it's usually framed), we've also had a parallel obesity problem.
My examples were from my time teaching and they directly correlated with what it’s like when parents have economic power and say in their children lunches and when they don’t.
I never juxtaposed prior decades to now.. in fact, it’s pretty clear through your example that it’s always been sub par. Are we disagreeing about the quality of American school lunch and that we can do better?
Absolutely not. If I wrote something that suggested I thought that, I wrote poorly.
US agriculture is a 1.3 trillion dollar enterprise.
Our kids should partake in that harvest and bounty.
Not only for better quality food, whole foods, but for starting life not dependent on hyper palatable, ultra processed food. This isn’t just for obesity but for overall health.
After the baby boom is when corporations were invited to bid on supplying school lunches.
Lobbyists then got involved decades later and that’s how we have pizza as a vegetable because of a schmear of tomato paste and pop tarts as whole grains.
One of the larger school lunch suppliers is Schwan’s . They are an active congressional lobbyist.
Here is their common US lunch pizza:
It’s full of omega 6 oils, protein product congealed out of soy, substitute cheese product congealed out of oil and casein, added sugar, salt, and fake food pressed together to pass for pizza.
Am I somehow in left field to think it’s “laughable” to think the worlds richest country with one of the largest agriculture systems on the planet can’t feed American school children a healthier whole food, option?
If we are talking about the cumulative health of a country, it’s a start.
I'm willing to accept some responsibility when I haven't written clearly and unambiguously. That may be the case here. But I feel like it's a stretch - a misinterpretation - to assume that I think that it's totally fine to use my (everyone's) tax dollars to feed children sub-par food.
I didn't quote your post when I wrote what you quoted above, though it followed yours chronologically.
That post of mine was intended as a response to the thread in general. It was somewhat influenced by some PPs on the thread that I felt were a bit rosily nostalgia-flavored in other ways, which brought to mind other discussions I've had (not on this thread) where public school lunches were portrayed in that same light.
Public school nutrition is an obvious place to target further public policy improvements, probably one of the (relatively) easier targets, and I think you've made good points. Please don't assume me into a straw man position here. I think we're on the same side, honestly.
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We have to face facts there are s#itty foods. Many times I see on these forums there are no bad foods. News flash, there are. How do we fix this? How about a $0.25 tax on each gram of added sugar in a serving of a food? Would get the ball rolling2
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Here is a picture of the testing of Gatorade at the University of Florida. What looks like a 230 pound or so college football player at practice drinking maybe 6-8 ounces. I had Gatorade back in the 70's it was great for replacing electrolytes but didn't taste very good. Now parents sent a liter bottle of full calorie Gatorade with their first graders to baseball/softball games where the kids get maybe 2 minute of strenuous exercise in a 90 minute game so they "stay hydrated"
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Theoldguy1 wrote: »We have to face facts there are s#itty foods. Many times I see on these forums there are no bad foods. News flash, there are. How do we fix this? How about a $0.25 tax on each gram of added sugar in a serving of a food? Would get the ball rolling
This is interesting. I’m trying to juggle the idea in my mind. What does this look like exactly? Like, at the check out counter? An invoice to the food companies?
This is what I’m hearing, tell me if I’m off base here, but you’re saying if you want added sugar you should personally pay for it and not everyone else, in the hopes it will minimize corporations from making, or people from buying, the foods they don’t need. Cause I’m totally open to that.
Question, isn’t this the same-ish as saying if you have weight related problems only you should have to pay for it, in terms of health care? But I like the pressure the tax would put on companies that make the food, even though we know it would only be passed down to the consumer. They would take a $.25 tax, call it $.50 and actually make money 🙄.
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Taxing is a bad idea and we pay enough taxes, you don't want to get that ball rolling especially in this particular climate, and guess which demographic is going to be effected the most, the people that can't afford to buy fresh food on a calorie basis or don't have a close proximity to whole foods and there's many other obstacles for a lot people. And .25 for every gram is excessive anyway, that equates to 9 dollars for a 12 oz pop.4
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Theoldguy1 wrote: »We have to face facts there are s#itty foods. Many times I see on these forums there are no bad foods. News flash, there are. How do we fix this? How about a $0.25 tax on each gram of added sugar in a serving of a food? Would get the ball rolling
This is interesting. I’m trying to juggle the idea in my mind. What does this look like exactly? Like, at the check out counter? An invoice to the food companies?
This is what I’m hearing, tell me if I’m off base here, but you’re saying if you want added sugar you should personally pay for it and not everyone else, in the hopes it will minimize corporations from making, or people from buying, the foods they don’t need. Cause I’m totally open to that.
Question, isn’t this the same-ish as saying if you have weight related problems only you should have to pay for it, in terms of health care? But I like the pressure the tax would put on companies that make the food, even though we know it would only be passed down to the consumer. They would take a $.25 tax, call it $.50 and actually make money 🙄.
An excise tax paid by the manufacturer to to government, same as currently done with alcohol and tobacco products.
As you suggest, pretty much a user fee.1 -
neanderthin wrote: »Taxing is a bad idea and we pay enough taxes, you don't want to get that ball rolling especially in this particular climate, and guess which demographic is going to be effected the most, the people that can't afford to buy fresh food on a calorie basis or don't have a close proximity to whole foods and there's many other obstacles for a lot people. And .25 for every gram is excessive anyway, that equates to 9 dollars for a 12 oz pop.
No taxes if you don't consume the product. Just like alcohol and tobacco. Frozen veggies are generally very low cost and guess what, no added sugar.
Fine if you don't like $0.25 per gram, call it $0.10. Or maybe the manufacturer gets rid of the obscene amount of sugar in a 12 oz Coke (novel idea). The point is to make it so expensive it changes behavior best case or worst case helps fund the health issues this stuff causes and/or subsidies for better nutrition for the poor.1 -
Theoldguy1 wrote: »We have to face facts there are s#itty foods. Many times I see on these forums there are no bad foods. News flash, there are. How do we fix this? How about a $0.25 tax on each gram of added sugar in a serving of a food? Would get the ball rolling
Well, maybe (in the US) first stop subsidizing sugar production? It's a little fuzzy what the costs of the subsidies are (depending on things like whether we just count government outlay, or include increased costs to consumers, speculation about job losses, among other issues).
But it's at least billions of dollars a year. (American Enterprise Institute, a think tank which is generally perceived as center-right-ish, in 2017 estimated $1.2B in what they call the "welfare transfer" to growers/producers, and estimated something like $2.4-4B per year in costs to households.)
Source: https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Analysis-of-the-US-Sugar-Program.pdf?x85095
And guess what? The overall governmental sugar support programs tend to make sugar more expensive to the consumer, according to the US GAO (Government Accountability Office), not exactly a hotbed of radical rabble-rousing: "In 2022 U.S. consumers, including food manufacturers, paid twice the world price for sugar."
Source: https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-24-106144
So, stop subsidizing, maybe sugar gets cheaper. Gosh, maybe these policy issues are kinda complicated, eh? Betcha taxation gets complicated, too. For sure, not gonna be popular. Funny how it works in a theoretically democratic republic (small d, small r) when someone tries something that ticks off not only powerful lobbies, but also the main mass of consumers.
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Anybody remember what happened when New York made it illegal to sell soft drinks in a cup over a certain size (don't remember what that size was). It was a fiasco. People revolted. It got repealed. And that was just telling people they couldn't buy sodas in gigantic cups.
ETA: just looked it up, the limit was 16 ounces.2 -
sollyn23l2 wrote: »Anybody remember what happened when New York made it illegal to sell soft drinks in a cup over a certain size (don't remember what that size was). It was a fiasco. People revolted. It got repealed. And that was just telling people they couldn't buy sodas in gigantic cups.
I was just thinking about this yesterday!0 -
Theoldguy1 wrote: »Many times I see on these forums there are no bad foods. News flash, there are.
The phrase “there are no bad foods” is not meant to say that all foods are equal in nutritional value. That is unarguably not true.
The phrase “there are no bad foods” is generally used in a situation where someone has ideas about foods that lead to problems. This is very common in the extreme restriction groups on the internet.
Or someone has sensory issues around taste and texture of foods. This is a common problem for autistic people.
No bad foods doesn’t mean ignore your body’s nutritional needs. In practice it’s actually the opposite.5
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