Americans are fat and getting fatter.
And the solutions to the problem are a pretty tall order.
“Altering the way society is organized” may be effective in addressing the problem but is it a viable solution?
Consider all the special interests benefitting from the system as it is now, from factory farms to tobacco companies, who is willing to be “re-organized”?
First lady Michelle Obama has made healthy eating her special project and hopefully she can bring national attention to growing problem.
The problem for the country echoes the problem for individuals: Willpower is not enough. “(It’s a) basic instinct, even stronger than the sexual instinct, to store calories to survive the next period of starvation. And we live in an environment where there’s food every half mile. It’s tasty, cheap, convenient, and you can eat it with one hand.”
Thus says Martijn Katan of the Institute of Health Sciences at VU University in Amsterdam, author of one of the many studies on the limits of dieting, quoted in U.S. News & World Report.
If you as an individual want to change your weight, you must change your whole life. Likewise, to reduce obesity in modern society, we will have to alter the way society is organized.
