Eat It

What has been on my mind these past few days you may ask?  An excellent question.  Lately I have been thinking about the problem with obesity that we see in the good ol' US of A.  A strange thing to think about for sure, however, a couple of things have sparked this thought process.  The first thing to lead to my deliberating the issue is the fact that I struggle with obesity myself.  As a teen and 20 something I was in pretty decent shape. As I approached my later 20s and beyond I gained a ridiculous amount of weight.  To this day I constantly battle with the desire to get back to a healthy state.  The second spark came from listening to NPR this morning.  I listen to NPR on my satellite radio as I drive to work.  Usually the program "Fresh Air" is on for my morning drive.  Today they had author Michael Moss on the show.  He has written an article entitled "The Extraordinary Science of Junk Food."  In this piece he exposes the efforts made by the big food manufacturers to get consumers to buy more and more of their products.  These two ideas collided in my brain and began the thought processes.
When I think about the problem my brain initially goes to the fact that you can almost draw a line in the sands of time and see where it all began.  I think specifically about my dad's dad who was not overweight at all, but ate pretty much fried everything his whole life.  My grandfather never went to a gym, or worked out to some wild exercise DVD.  The man pretty much ate what he wanted, and did what he wanted.  This is the place where Michael Moss' expose comes into the scene.
His article discusses the science that the big food manufacturers (Kellogg, General Mills, Coke, and all companies such as these)  put into developing products that people would consume over and over.  It discusses something called "the bliss point."  The bliss point is the perfect combination of salt, fat and sugar that causes people to eat more of a product than they normally would consume.  Apparently, there have been conversations within and amongst these companies in regards to how their products have contributed to the obesity epidemic we see today.  As is expected none will take full responsibility, but some may admit to some small degree of responsibility.  I also found it interesting that some of the leading scientists that developed these bliss points for each company, now have regrets about their work.
There are many groups who have discussed the need for these manufacturers to decrease the amount of salt, fat and sugar their products contain. The general response from these companies is that they have a responsibility to their stockholders to produce a profit.  I know for some of you "profit" is a dirty word, but as I'll discuss in a minute there is valid concern here.  I will admit that it is easy to simply point our fingers at the big, bad corporations, but maybe we should take some responsibility as well.
As consumers, we do have the right to purchase what we want. However, my observation is that it has become more and more difficult to determine what is good and what is bad to eat.  Even as rules are created to force companies to be more open about what their product contains, we have nutritionists who cannot agree on what is good for us. Plus, the research shows that the combination of salt, fat, and sugar found in products today tend to "trick" the brain into eating more of them than we should.  I hesitate to use the word "addiction," but the results are similar.
To me the question we need to ask is "how do we solve the problem?"  One solution would be for the manufacturers to voluntarily reduce the sugar/fat/salt content of these products, but that brings us back to the discussion of their fiduciary responsibility to their stockholders.  They fear that if they make these changes then people will consume less of their product, and thus they will lose profits and could potentially find themselves working in the "red." Being a voluntary situation won't work because there will always be those entities who will not play along, and thus all of them will fall back to the same habits they have now.  I admit that I do not have a problem with companies making a profit.  To me it is the same as you and me going to work to make money.  However, I do believe that profits should be made with a modicum of ethics.
Another solution that comes to mind is to pass legislation that requires these companies to decrease the levels of fat/sugar/salt.  The down sides to this solution are that you now involve the government, who will have to create some agency to over-see these companies and ensure they are doing what they should do.  Sounds quite expensive to the tax payers.  It also makes me question what would happen if in fact all of these companies begin to lose sales, as they predict they would, and end up having to cut costs. The number one cost in a company is usually payroll.  Therefore, it could create a situation where many of these companies begin letting workers go.  In an economy that is already struggling to get back on its feet, having thousands more people out of work can't be a good thing.
I also would argue that we, the consumers, need to "reprogram" ourselves by being more mindful of what we consume.  Maybe we should reach for more fruits and whole foods to eat rather than reaching for chips, and other processed foods.  We have not always had this "addiction, " and in my opinion, we can get rid of it.  Will it be easy?  Heck no, but with small steps we can make the changes necessary to decrease our intake of these foods.  I also think that we need to battle the influx of all of this junk food into our schools.  We do not need soda machines or vending machines in our schools.  Our lunchrooms do not need to offer the kids ice cream, or pre-packaged pastries.  When i would go have lunch with my daughter at her school, I was shocked to see what would happen.  The students would purchase their lunch, or maybe they brought a lunch, and MOST of them would also buy some sort of sugary, fatty junk food.  The lunch would go in the trash, and they would eat the junk food.  That would be their entire lunch.
We need to re-educate ourselves about proper nutrition. We need to push for better choices, especially for our children. I take full responsibility for my bad eating habits, and the poor choices my child makes when it comes to eating.  Go to a restaurant, and the child's menu is the following: mac and cheese, hamburger, hot dog, chicken fingers, or cheese pizza.  That makes no sense.
I do not proclaim to know the answers necessary to solve the issue, but I do think about it with some regularity.  I'd like to hear your thoughts on what steps we need to take to solve the issue.
NO song today, but here is a link to the article that began my thinking
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinary-science-of-junk-food.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0