The US administration defends the rights of its citizens to be untroubled by discomforting information. Why? Do they think people will listen to WHO? Question for those who know more about this than I do: does obesity cost governments money all things considered, or does it save them money by causing earlier death resulting in lower claims on social security/pensions etc?
{ 28 comments }
Ophelia Benson 01.20.04 at 8:26 pm
Yeah, I linked to a story about that on B&W a few days ago. I especially love this line of thought –
“Mr Steiger said the report did not place sufficient emphasis on the responsibility of the individual to eat a balanced diet.”
Right. Just as with tobacco – the industry can make and peddle and advertise products that are as harmful, dangerous, toxic, life-threatening as they want to, it’s up to each and every one of us to resist their blandishments. And if we don’t – well obviously we’re a pack of stupid spineless weak greedy sugar-gobbling cigarette-smoking morons who deserve to drop dead of lung cancer crossed with diabetes. The sellers of course are entirely blameless – just doing their job. Case closed.
Mats 01.20.04 at 8:57 pm
>>does obesity cost governments money>> has obviously to depend on how the government taxes its citizens, and what benefits there are. Remember that study on smoking and its impact on fiscal balances in Czechia? It showed that the outcome of such studies also depend on who is involved in the calculations (tobacco industry somehow made themselves involved, but the results was then altered after a less biased critisism and revision).
Turning the question the other way round – how much does citizens have to pay in terms of obesity when local government mismanage urban planning?
Rob Lyman 01.20.04 at 9:00 pm
Wow, Ophelia, you’ve captured my beliefs almost (but not quite) perfectly.
If your eating/drinking/smoking/excercise/driving/sexual/etc. habits are determined by TV commercials and billboards, then you are, in fact, stupid, spineless, and weak, and you probably do deserve the ill consequences of that stupidity. But maybe not, if we assume that dietary stupidity is congenital and incurable (I think it’s neither).
But that, of course, does not absolve the sellers, because its wrong and immoral to exploit stupid and/or weak people.
The thing is, it isn’t the Bush admin that’s assuming people are stupid and weak–they appear to think that people are capable of self-control, that is, that US citizens are adults. It’s the WHO that is insulting us by assuming that the average person is so infantile that he can’t possibly be trusted to make these choices, and that he needs government to “help” him make the “right” ones. I find it rather weird that you reverse the two, and accuse Bush of being patronizing.
Furthermore, it isn’t clear to me why the WHO should be molesting the fat citizens of wealthy democracies, anyway. We are utterly awash in information about proper dietary choices and the importance of excercise. That some people choose to ignore it is, well, their fault and their problem. Being free means being free to choose something that the WHO thinks is “wrong.”
Aren’t there people dying of preventable childhood diseases somewhere in Africa that the WHO could expend its resources on?
Rv. Agnos 01.20.04 at 9:20 pm
I agree with Rob. Why use scarce WHO resources to fight obesity among people with a life expectancy of 80 years, when there are people dying of malaria at age 20.
The last thing I want is global health resources getting diverted away from the malnourished and sick and toward people who can’t stick to the Atkins Diet.
harry 01.20.04 at 10:01 pm
My take was that the WHO was not proposing to prohibit anyone from eating anything. Just trying to provide reliable information. Goodness, there are whole industries spending a fortune telling people the Atkins diet is good for them, and large numbers of people seem to believe it, despite there being no evidence at all. Just a little bit of alternative information might be helpful, no?
I’m sympathetic to the throughgoing libertarian view on this by the way — get rid of massive subsidies for agriculture, roadbuilding, etc, that result in artifically cheap food and more sedentary lfiestyles. But the food industry isn’t proposing that, right: they want to have their cake and have subsidies to make it cheap for people to eat.
Actually, one chink in my friendliness to the thoroughgoing liberatrain position on this: I am in favour of funding public schools; so have to have a government polciy about what we should do in them with food. I’m basically against using them (as we do) to habituate children to unhealthy food, and in favour of having federal regulations against, eg, advertising fast food on the school premisses. (If you don’t believe me go into your local public schools and watch.)
Incidentally, obesity is no longer a problem exclusively of rich countries.
dsquared 01.20.04 at 10:08 pm
Right. Just as with tobacco – the industry can make and peddle and advertise products that are as harmful, dangerous, toxic, life-threatening as they want to, it’s up to each and every one of us to resist their blandishments. And if we don’t – well obviously we’re a pack of stupid spineless weak greedy sugar-gobbling cigarette-smoking morons who deserve to drop dead of lung cancer crossed with diabetes. The sellers of course are entirely blameless – just doing their job. Case closed.
Brilliantly put, Ophelia. In other words, the advertising industry is the only industry in the world that does not produce any pollution.
Rob Lyman 01.20.04 at 10:23 pm
Harry,
1) Why would we think that the WHO would have better answers to nutritional question than anyone else? There are lots of experts out there; some work for food or diet companies, and are thus perhaps suspect, but plenty of others are academics and researchers with no axe to grind, except perhaps self-promotion. I’m not seeing why we can’t just leave it up to them, and spend the WHO money helping people who literally can’t help themselves, rather than hectoring those who choose not to stop helping themselves.
2) I think this is the thin edge of the wedge. The anti-obesity people have plainly declared their intention to use lawsuits, taxes, regulations, etc. to coerce their version of a healthy lifestyle. The look with admiration to the same tactics used against tobacco. So I regard this as rather more sinister than simply giving what may well be quite sensible advice.
3) I’m totally with you on agricultural subsidies and advertising in schools except: I don’t think the feds have any business mucking about in public schools. I know they do it all the time, but that doesn’t justify expanding their power. I don’t want kids seeing fast-food ads (or any ads at all) at school, but if a desperate school district can’t meet the payroll any other way, then they should be permitted to do so. Better kids with teachers and Coke ads than kids without teachers. And that’s a judgment that should be made at the local level, where both understanding of the problem and accountability to the parents is greatest.
Ben Keen 01.20.04 at 10:35 pm
The difference between tobacco and ‘unhealthy food’ that weakens or scotches outright any analogy is that it’s clearly possible to consume ‘unhealthy food’ **in moderation** without adverse health effects.
That is, McDonald’s five times a week is harmful; a pack of ciggies a day is also harmful, but 5 ciggies a day is much more detectably harmful proportionately to a pack of ciggies a day than McDonald’s once a week is to McDonald’s 5 times a week.
Also, it’s not as though (I believe!) that foods companies are sitting on info that is not widely known about the harmful potential of their products. Tobacco companies did this all through the 60s up to the settlement.
Jonathan Ichikawa 01.20.04 at 10:46 pm
I’m particularly impressed with the accusation that the UN is *singling out* certain types of food — those high in sugar and fat!
Sebastian Holsclaw 01.20.04 at 11:15 pm
“And if we don’t – well obviously we’re a pack of stupid spineless weak greedy sugar-gobbling cigarette-smoking morons who deserve to drop dead of lung cancer crossed with diabetes.”
Well actually, yes except for the ‘deserve to drop dead part. I don’t think being an idiot means you deserve it. It just means that is a likely and predictable result of your actions. But all sorts of likely and predictable results are allowed. The likely and predictable result of free speech is that we will all look like fools at one time or another. But I’m totally ok with that. Thus far life is a terminal condition. 30 years of enjoyment traded for a year or two at the end may seem like a good trade for many people. I guess I’m lucky that I’ve never found enjoyment in smoking, heavy drinking, or immoderate eating.
PG 01.20.04 at 11:45 pm
Perhaps we can have a trade; the U.S. will let people start poisoning themselves with currently-illegal narcotics, and WHO can get the taxes from the sale of cocaine, heroin etc. to do their work in other countries.
Sebastian Holsclaw 01.21.04 at 12:33 am
I would gladly trade legalization for many currently illegal drugs in exchange for telling the WHO to stuff it on this issue.
…though since that wouldn’t alter my drug legalization position at all, it isn’t really a fair trade.
andrew 01.21.04 at 1:08 am
…”If your eating/drinking/smoking […] habits are determined by TV commercials and billboards, then you are, in fact, stupid, spineless, and weak, and you probably do deserve the ill consequences of that stupidity”…
Rob: “Deserve” is a strange word, isn’t it? Do you deserve to be born smart? Do others deserve to have parents that taught them to read at 5 years old?
And I assume you also wouldn’t have a problem with your house being surrounded with sex shops, topless bars, prostitution, drug dealers on corners, etc.? I’m sure you or your child is smart enough to resist the crack dealers. All they are doing is offering, right? You have the freedom to choose.
DJW 01.21.04 at 1:16 am
That is, McDonald’s five times a week is harmful; a pack of ciggies a day is also harmful, but 5 ciggies a day is much more detectably harmful proportionately to a pack of ciggies a day than McDonald’s once a week is to McDonald’s 5 times a week.
Ben Keen, I’m not being snotty, I’m legitimately curious: is this speculation or is there solid evidence of this? I’m curious because friend of mine in medical research told me he wasn’t aware of any studies done on smokers of under a pack a day. This was something I held on to back when I was a light smoker, but now that I’m off them altogether I can explore this without harm to my personal justificatory apparatus.
DJW 01.21.04 at 1:22 am
To be clear, I know what you say about McDonalds is accurate, I’m less certain on the cigarettes.
Ophelia Benson 01.21.04 at 2:11 am
Ben, fair point about the analogy – and since I like to undermine bad analogies, as you know, I should be all the more scrupulous with my own.
But I think the analogy works well enough for the particular argument I’m making, or not so much argument as sarcastic reductio. As illustration of the absurdity of saying it’s the responsibility of the individ’l to resist advertising, while ignoring any responsibility on the part of advertisers. That is, the gummint’s position assumes that the advertising has to be resisted, in order to achive that ‘balanced diet’ it mentions. So exact resemblance of the two harms is not necessary for this particular use of the analogy – the analogy is addressing a different aspect of the issue.
Still. On the moral ladder, people who flog a product that is purely toxic and nothing else – not nutritious as well as toxic, but just plain toxic; that has no other, benign use; and that is highly addictive, are several rungs farther up (or down) than those who flog food some of which is maybe sort of kind of nutritious in a way.
Gwendolyn 01.21.04 at 2:45 am
Improving education about nutrition is still important, even if it is already available, although I think national public health agencies can do it just as well as the WHO (at least in some countries). It seems to me that a lot of people may lack the background knowledge to really understand why nutritional guidelines say what they do.
Purely anecdotal, but while working for a muffin franchise, I lost all faith in the average person’s knowledge of nutrition when a woman asked me for no-fat, *no-calorie* muffins and informed me that she was under doctor’s orders to consume *no* calories and no fat. (And she said *no*, not *low*).
Rv. Agnos 01.21.04 at 3:43 am
It just strikes me that appropriate nutritional information is essentially a local concern among the well off. Individual nations/regions have different staple diets, and it won’t do to have one global response to varying conditions.
Just because there is obesity in many different nations does not make it a reasonable concern for a World Health Organization. Their essential purpose is (or should be) to address problems (such as eradication of polio) that simply cannot be addressed on a nation-by-nation basis.
James 01.21.04 at 9:18 am
On the subject of advertising, WHO do seem to have sold us successfully on two ideas: that they know the answers to obesity etc; and that doing anything to stop them from advertising what they claim to be the truth is immoral and right-wing.
On a personal level, I can’t see this making any difference either way, because I’m not convinced ignorance is what’s behind the increase in obesity. I see it more as a phase in the history of western poverty – in the UK we seem to be at a stage where instead of no food or little food being available at to those on low incomes, poor quality and fattening food is being made available at affordable prices whilst fresh food is priced out of reach or not stocked at all. If you WANT to eat healthily, you either seek out small, perhaps ethnic, stores, that sell the appropriate items, and there may not be any within the reach of your transport, or you may not have the time or the equipment to prepare it properly. Unless you are fortunate enough to live close to a market for produce, fresh fruit and vegetables, or quality cuts of meat, are beyond your budget. Which means that in many areas, you can advertise WHO’s recommendations to your heart’s content, and have no impact whatsoever. Where’s the solution? Transport isn’t it, necessarily: food has to be carried, and if you are already keeping three children with you, that’s no easy thing, let alone on a bus. Subsidies for food? Well – in the EU, we’re already distorting the price of fresh food dramatically upwards, so perhaps we should leave well alone. Free delivery to low income families? In certain circumstances, yes, that could work. Banning advertising to children? We’ve done it for tobacco in the UK without bringing the world to a halt. But it doesn’t address the accessibility issue.
Robert Lyman 01.21.04 at 2:51 pm
Andrew,
I’m a drug war skeptic, and a prostitution-law skeptic, and while I don’t think topless bars and sex shops are necessarily a great thing, I can’t see banning them, either. Think of what that would do to the bachelor party and gag gift industries!
It is fair to say, however, that I would rather not live in the heart of a sex and drugs district, although that is more a worry about crime than it is about the temptations it offers. I do indeed have freedom to choose, and no amount of advertising will make me smoke crack.
But your question regarding children misses the point. As I said in my second post, I’m no fan of advertising in public schools, and it’s fair to say that I’m no fan of advertising to children. Children, unlike adults, ARE infantile and lack full capacity to make informed decisions. Finding a way to ban ads aimed at them without unacceptable infringing on free speach is fine with me.
BUT…I wasn’t talking about children, and I’m not sure the WHO and other food nannies are talking exclusively about children, either. I think they’re talking about me (when they start talking taxes and subsidies, I KNOW they’re talking about me). And I resent the patronizing suggestion that I am prostrate and helpless before the power of the god Advert, or that I somehow can’t figure out that too much food and no exercise is bad for me.
Ophelia Benson 01.21.04 at 3:15 pm
What’s all this nanny nonsense? What on earth is nannyish or coercive or intrusive or anything similar in simply issuing research-based nutritional information?? The information doesn’t come complete with heavily-armed UN soldiers to force spinach down your throat, or a fleet of black helicopters to open fire on your Big Macs. It’s just some information for cryin’ out loud!
Robert Lyman 01.21.04 at 3:24 pm
Ophelia,
As I said above, I think this is the thin edge of the wedge. A number of people have declared their intention to use tobacco as their model (you yourself made that analogy), and initiate lawsuits, taxes, regulation, etc.
The information the WHO intends to provide is already out there, for anyone who cares, which makes WHO efforts wasteful unless they are laying the groundwork for something else. In which case I’m glad to see our government resisting at every turn. It doesn’t take black helecopters and blue helmets to restrict liberty and coerce “virtue.”
Andrew,
I should have pointed out that being born smart and having parents who teach you to read are things that someone cannot control, and therefore people who have or lack these advantages do not “deserve” the consequences.
Eating too much and not exercising are both things that individuals can control, and therefore it is perfectly sensible to believe that they “deserve” the outcome.
Ophelia Benson 01.21.04 at 4:27 pm
“The information the WHO intends to provide is already out there, for anyone who cares, which makes WHO efforts wasteful unless they are laying the groundwork for something else.”
Hmm. One could say that about a lot of things – most things. Shakespeare’s plays are already out there, so why bother to teach them? Gibbon, Thucydides, Hume, Rousseau, Austen, Keats, are all out there, so what need is there to keep publishing them and teaching them? Anything we say as probably been said before, probably millions of times, so why bother to talk?
Nope, can’t buy it. Dissemination of research and knowledge is a good thing, not a bad one. That’s my view.
harry 01.21.04 at 4:35 pm
My understanding is that the US delegation is opposing proposed regulation of advertising to children, which everyone else supports. I’ll post on advertising to children in a while, but rest assured that school administrators who allow advertising in school get virtually nothing for it for their schools — these are tirvial amounts of money, and the administrators who accept them simply have a completely wrong view about what the point of schooling is, and what their oblgiations to children are.
Personally I think a great deal of regulation can be justified on ‘paternalism to children’ grounds, because of the diffculties of preventing spill-overs from adult-oriented practices into children’s lives. But isn’t there also a problem with making a sharp distinguish between infantile children and non-infantile adults when the adults are people who, as children, had habits and practices inculcated by their schools, parents, and social influences, which are extremely hard to break with? You wouldn’t think that an adult crack-addict who had acquired the habit at age 11 under the influence of their parent and school was suddenly responsible for it. Children in my city and almost every district in the US outside the Eastern seaboard are provided with schools they cannot walk to (4 miles away, too many busy roads to cross, housing zoned too sparsely and schools built far too big to make for nearby schooling) in which they are fed junk food (both at meal times and by teachers who give them candy, sometimes daily); roads they can’t safely play on (too much traffic); and are fed by their parents a diet of junk food and advertisements for junk food on TV. Half of them wil enter adulthood overwieght with bad habits — they won’t suddenly be responsible for that, and they will face much more difficulty in overcoming these habits than people who enter adulthood without them. There’s also a major collective action problem here — if you want your kid to have freidns you have to let them visit other kid’s houses where they are encouraged to watch these ads and are fed this food… sorry, I’m starting to rant, but you get the idea
I hate to fuel Ophelia’s love of the BBC relative to NPR/PBS but it is worth noting that more time is given to advertising on PBS KIDS than during children’s programming on *commercial* broadcast TV in the UK.
Robert Lyman 01.21.04 at 5:02 pm
Ophelia,
Your comparison to education is ridiculous. Every generation must be educated anew; this means teaching them works from the past which are already “out there.”
Nor would I object to your posting dietary advice here, on the grounds that it already existed. Go right ahead.
But let’s go with your publishing analogy. Does it make sense for the UN, or the government at any level, to expend large sums of money printing Shakespeare? The private sector already produces good-quality editions at low prices. Might that money be better spent, say, on adult literacy programs, which are more properly the concern of the government?
The private sector (and, for that matter, all levels of government in the US) produce huge volumes of dietary advice. Some is good, some is bad, and some is no doubt so bad that it is “not even wrong.” Those who are interested read this advice; those who are not interested will not read the WHO’s advice. Nor is it likely that the WHO’s advice will be radically different from the USDA’s.
The WHO should not waste its money producing one more report or press release that no one will read. It should, as in the publishing example, devote itself to those things areas in which the private sector does not do enough. Like childhood diseases in Africa.
harry 01.21.04 at 5:23 pm
It’s touching to see such a concern for the developing world here. As I say, it is not only in developed countries that obesity is a problem. And developing countries often face choices about what sort of models of development to adopt. I think the US preferred model, which it uses its weight and aid to promote, is pretty lousy, in numerous ways. Its valuable to have alternative perspectives. The WHO’s proposals are not exclusively relevant to rich countries.
The private sector does, indeed, promote a great deal of information and misinformation. There is a lot of noise. It is worth having authoritative bodies whose voices can be heard above the noise, and which are susceptible to reasoned arguments. Over time the WHO has seemed like that. Not perfect, to be sure, but not profit-seeking and not thoroughly corrupt.
Ophelia Benson 01.21.04 at 5:32 pm
Robert,
What Harry said only more so. Your post sounds as if you think the WHO is addressing exclusively the US. That W in WHO? It stands for World. There are one or two countries in the world other than the US, you know.
(I know, it is sad, my BBCphilia and NPR/PBSphobia. But what can I do? They are what they are.)
Robert Lyman 01.21.04 at 6:29 pm
Harry wrote:
The US administration defends the rights of its citizens to be untroubled by discomforting information…
[I am] in favour of having federal regulations against, eg, advertising fast food on the school premisses…
[I]t is worth noting that more time is given to advertising on PBS KIDS than during children’s programming on commercial broadcast TV in the UK.
In addition, Ophelia has repeatedly complained about advertising practices which I understand (perhaps erroneously) to be dominant in the US and more heavily regulated elsewhere.
I think that these sorts of comments make a focus on the US in my comments justified. I haven’t seen a lot of info on French or Kenyan school advertising, so I haven’t bothered to post about it. Not, of course, that I would have anything to say about it anyway.
And I’m having a hard time seeing what advice on cutting one’s sugar intake has to do with “models of development” being adopted by developing countries. Unless, of course, I’m right in thinking that this is the first step in a tax, subsidize, and regulate scheme.
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