The Weight of the World

“One of the things Congress needs to look at, although by no means is this the whole enchilada, is how to put vegetables and fruits on equal footing with corn, soy, and other commodity crops,” Steven Blackledge, public health program director at U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG), told LifeZette.

“Federal subsidies for commodity crops subsidize junk food additives like high fructose corn syrup at a rate that would buy 20 Twinkies for every taxpayer per year. Subsidies for fresh fruits and eatables would buy half an apple per taxpayer. On a scale of 1 to 10, that’s absurd,” he added.

Blackledge offered the comments in response to new numbers out from the world’s largest obesity study to date.

Public health researchers at the Imperial College in London recently analyzed body mass index (BMI) data for adults across the globe from 1975 to 2014. In all, the data contains information about the health of 19.2 million men and women in 186 countries.

What they found: A staggering 1 in 10 men and 1 in 7 women are now considered obese — and for the first time in history, the number of overweight adults outnumbers the number of underweight adults.

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At first glance, this could seem like good news — as if the number of people facing starvation is decreasing. But looks can be deceiving. “Both underweight and obesity are forms of malnutrition,” Dr. Mariachiara Di Cesare, research fellow at Imperial College London, told LifeZette.

Dr. Di Cesare said these opposite ends of the weight spectrum are both related “to the food environment, in which either some people do not have enough to eat or enough healthy foods to eat.”

In most developed nations — with the exception of Southeast Asia — the new face of hunger and food insecurity is fatness. This change is drastic, especially when you consider that in 1975, the number of underweight adults worldwide was more than double the number of obese adults.

The United States is one of six nations — along with Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom — that has recorded a dramatic increase in the number of overweight adults.

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The increase is tied to the changes in food processing and the overwhelming government support of commodity crops such as corn and soybeans — which, as Blackledge pointed out earlier, are largely converted to junk food ingredients like high fructose corn syrup and soybean oil.

The American Heart Association also recommends that we get no more than 100 calories, roughly the equivalent of 6 teaspoons, from added sugars per day. The average American, however, is consuming 76.7 grams per day, or about 19 teaspoons, in added sugars.

Blackledge points out the irony of government cash flowing to competing initiatives. For example, the site choosemyplate.gov is meant to aid people in making healthy food choices — but the Department of Agriculture has given over $108 billion in subsidies to junk food crops since 1995. They’ve spent only $637 million for apples and vegetables during that same time.

One could say that we’re receiving mixed messages.

Sadly, though, it’s the most vulnerable sectors of the population who are taking the biggest hit. A 2004 report published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition said, “There is no question that the rates of obesity and type 2 diabetes in the United States follow a socioeconomic gradient, such that the burden of disease falls disproportionately on people with limited resources, racial-ethnic minorities, and the poor.”

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The report continued: “Although obesity rates have continued to increase steadily in both sexes, at all ages, in all races, and at all educational levels, the highest rates occur among the most disadvantaged groups.”

Taxpayers may also be paying twice for getting fat.

In addition to your hard-earned dollars being spent on junk food subsidies, the estimated annual health care costs of obesity-related illness amount to $190.2 billion. That’s 21 percent of annual medical spending in the United States. If the obesity rates continue to rise, costs attributed to disability and unemployment will also rise.

Businesses are already paying $4.3 billion each year in obesity-related absenteeism.

From this perspective, the future looks rather grim. The study from Imperial College notes that if trends continue as they are, we have zero chance of reaching our goals for global health by 2020.

Dr. Di Cesare told LifeZette: “We hope our study will motivate action to change policies — to price healthier foods so they are accessible to people regardless of income.” She also recommends regulating advertising, like we did with the tobacco industry, for unhealthy foods to reduce their consumption.

That’s one piece of the puzzle. Other pieces include promoting a healthy lifestyle instead of a sedentary one, and helping to ease some of the overscheduled lifestyle of working-class people — who often turn to pre-made, processed food because they do not have the time between multiple jobs to cook nutritious meals.

Blackledge agreed: “We need to keep educating consumers and help them push for changes in the industry. We need them to vote with their wallets more than they’re already doing. But we need consumers to engage in politics too.”

He continued: “That’s needed if we’re going to move the industry toward healthier foods.”