Marc Ambinder, “Beating Obesity,” The Atlantic, May 2010
“If we are to solve the many problems that obesity is creating for American society, we must first move beyond the stale ‘willpower versus the food-industrial complex’ debate,” contends politics editor Marc Ambinder in the May 2010 edition of The Atlantic. Examining the powerful interest groups arrayed against each other in this fight, Ambinder claims that the rise in obesity is not attributable to one specific cause but “is associated with a rogue’s gallery of individual, social, and technological factors.” He resists the temptation “to borrow insights and metaphors from the 50-year battle against smoking,” maintaining that “[o]besity belongs in a different category of social illness.”
In Ambinder’s view, the current epidemic is a confluence of both personal and environmental risks largely mitigated by socioeconomic status. In particular, he criticizes public health campaigns aimed at individual choices when “just being an American can naturally lead you to be obese.” According to Ambinder, “Putting individual free will up against the increase in portion sizes, massive technological and societal changes, food-company taste-engineering, and the ubiquity of effective television advertisements is like asking Ecuador to conquer China.”
Moreover, the breadth of these challenges has apparently made it difficult for consumer groups and lawmakers to form “a coherent political movement.” “[An] insult to quilts everywhere,” this patchwork approach to policy has made food marketing “the holy grail” for activists seeking a foothold in the regulatory process. In addition, local, state and federal agencies have all attempted their own strategies but risk becoming bogged down in “long-standing institutional and legal struggles.” As a result, he notes, food and beverage companies have taken the lead in self-regulation by adhering to voluntary advertising guidelines and funding programs “to promote better diets and more exercise in schools and the workplace.”
Despite these obstacles, Ambinder holds out hope that first lady Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity campaign will bring together regulators, health officials and industry stakeholders. In a supplement to his article, he specifically urges policy makers to (i) recognize the role of an obesogenic environment, (ii) ameliorate food deserts, (iii) end the stigma against obesity, (iv) accept regulation as “a necessary evil,” and (v) support Obama in her new leadership role. “I think the obesity crisis is real AND reversible,” he concludes, “no one solution—not banning high-fructose corn syrup, not soda taxes, not universal health care—will be the panacea. Instead, a broad-based, metric-monitored national public health campaign, led by a strong political leader who has the authority and legitimacy to knock heads, can identify what works, what doesn’t, and to persuade states, Congress, companies, and the culture at large to follow suit.”
