Social Policy Researcher Contends Anti-Obesity Initiatives Don’t Work

In a Spring 2013 Breakthrough Institute paper, social policy research associate Helen Lee suggests that public health advocates have gone astray in modeling anti-obesity efforts on anti-tobacco efforts that have done little to address either overeating or smoking in any appreciable way. Titled “The Making of the Obesity Epidemic: How Food Activism Led Public Health Astray,” the paper argues that research does not support a link between obesity and increased mortality, unless the obese are also poor and lack access to adequate health care. In fact, Lee notes that mortality from diabetes and cardiovascular disease, often associated with excess weight, has decreased significantly because these diseases are treatable.

Lee believes that “embracing obesity strategies that reinforce the notion that the poor are victims of an environment that is rigged against them” will not help them in the long run and that the better strategy would be to focus on “policy interventions that reinforce behaviors associated with better life outcomes.” She takes particular issue with food advocates Marion Nestle and Michael Pollan who point to the food industry as the source of all obesity-related issues. She suggests that the public health community has overlooked the multiplicity of healthy practices that lead to longevity, such as managing one’s weight, getting regular sleep, and exercising, in favor of reducing the “obesity epidemic” to “single factors.” Lee argues that “nutrition education and school gardening programs are probably a lot less valuable than curriculums that show young people how to manage desires for unhealthy foods.”