Tuesday, June 15, 2004
By David Suzuki
While concerns over body-image obsessions are certainly legitimate, obesity has become a real health crisis in North America, and we aren't alone.
As American-style fast-food chains, snack foods, and soft drinks spread, so do waistlines. According to the World Health Organization, almost 1 billion of the world's people are now overweight and some 300 million are obese. We're not talking about just a bit of extra weight that makes it hard to put on the clothes we once wore; we're talking about added pounds that create potential medical problems like diabetes and heart disease.
In North America, 65 percent of Americans are overweight, as are nearly half of all Canadians. Why? Well, no doubt it's related to the fact that the average American now consumes 3,800 calories every day — or about twice as much as we need. And why do we eat so much? Experts say that our easy access to cheap, calorie-rich foods is a big part of the problem.
For example, children's fast-food meals typically contain 700-900 calories, or more than half the recommended daily amount. Yet children are specifically targeted by the fast food and junk food industries. They know that young fast-food consumers will grow to become adult fast-food consumers. That makes them a perfect target.
Governments have been reluctant to regulate these industries with requirements like calorie labeling on fast-food menus and a ban on junk food advertising aimed at children. That must change. As a recent editorial in the journal Nature points out: "Individual choice is just not working."
Obesity rates are continuing to climb, and the associated health care costs in the United States alone total more than $117 billion a year — not to mention the 400,000 or so preventable deaths.
But diet is just part of the problem. Another big part is our lack of exercise, which partly stems from the way our cities are designed. After World War II, suburbs proliferated, often out of walking distance to schools, work, or shopping. Without adequate public transit, that left many of us dependent on the car to get just about anywhere.
Now, new research to be published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine has found that each hour spent per day in a car increases a person's risk of obesity by 6 percent, while each kilometer walked daily decreases that risk by 5 percent.
The study, conducted on more than 10,000 Atlanta residents and led by University of British Columbia professor Larry Frank, also found that those who live close to shopping areas weigh on average 4.5 kilograms (10 pounds) less than those living in housing-only areas.
Although Canadian cities are generally more dense than those in the United States, our suburbs also continue to expand with residential-only housing projects serviced by strip malls, fast-food outlets, and big-box stores. That means more roads, more cars, and more of the pollution that causes smog and climate change. It also means less land is available for green spaces and agriculture.
Obesity is a serious health problem, and it is only getting worse, in spite of a $33 billion a year diet industry. To truly get a grip on the obesity crisis we face in North America, we have to look at ways to redesign our communities to encourage more walking and other physical activities.
At the same time, we have to take children off the menu as targets for the fast-food and junk-food industries and ensure that adults know what is in the food they eat.
We're too fat. And it has nothing to do with a body-image problem. It has everything to do with how much we eat and how we live.
