I’m surprised this contrarian view on obesity hasn’t gotten more play:
Dr. Jeffrey Friedman, an obesity researcher at Rockefeller University, argues that contrary to popular opinion, national data do not show Americans growing uniformly fatter.
Instead, he says, the statistics demonstrate clearly that while the very fat are getting fatter, thinner people have remained pretty much the same….
Obesity, Dr. Friedman says, is a problem; fat people are derided and they have health risks like diabetes and heart disease. But it does no one any good to exaggerate the extent of obesity or to blame the obese for being fat.
“Before calling it an epidemic, people really need to understand what the numbers do and don’t say,” he said.
It’s worth citing the “epidemic” with a healthy pair of scare quotes, particularly for a problem that’s incremental in its appearance (not only for individuals gaining weight, but for average weights over time). Still, I do wonder if Friedman is right in choosing 1991 as the comparison year. After all, the real change in diet and activity seems to correlate to prosperity and white collar labor of the postwar era, and in particular shifts in the 1980s - with the hegemony of fast food and instant food. While the decades since, say, 1970 might be a long enough time to throw cold water on “epidemic” fears, I suspect they would show the emergence of widespread obesity on a level not present before.
Epidemic or not, one of the more facile responses to obesity has been to blame supersizing practices of fast food restaurants. And of course, the latest film Super Size Me has taken that as its premise. But let me suggest an overlooked super-sizing problem: Dunkin Donuts. Living in New England, I can’t help but remark how many people drink one of those “Boston lattes” as a friend of mine calls them (half coffee, half cream, three sugars) or the iced coffee equivalent. What’s more, go into Dunkin Donuts and order a coffee with milk and you’ll be lucky not to be walking out with one of those cream-drenched sugary drinks.
So I propose a little experiment. If Dunkin Donuts would put cream and sugar out for the customers to add, rather than to add these themselves, and if they would substitute a lighter cream or half-and-half for what they serve now, I bet that New Englanders would lose five pounds a year on average. Just a thought.
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