Our Health Policy Matters

Obesity rates in America are higher than ever. This is the conclusion in a new Robert Wood Johnson Foundation report entitled F as in Fat: How Obesity Threatens America’s Future .    Released last week, the document notes that one-third of children and two-thirds of adults are now obese or overweight.   Obesity is no minor health matter.   It is linked to disease, disability, and premature death. The report received some media attention for a couple of days, but then we had our fill of it.   It faded into the news background largely because we’ve heard the story before.   No one disputes the two major causes of obesity in America.   Americans take in too many calories, and work off too few. If we accept these causes at face value, the story ends as we decide that weight is a matter of individual – not governmental – responsibility.   The individual choice argument is a powerful one for those who do not think that the government needs to “int...

Obesity rates in America are higher than ever. This is the conclusion in a new Robert Wood Johnson Foundation report entitled F as in Fat: How Obesity Threatens America’s Future .    Released last week, the document notes that one-third of children and two-thirds of adults are now obese or overweight.   Obesity is no minor health matter.   It is linked to disease, disability, and premature death. The report received some media attention for a couple of days, but then we had our fill of it.   It faded into the news background largely because we’ve heard the story before.   No one disputes the two major causes of obesity in America.   Americans take in too many calories, and work off too few. If we accept these causes at face value, the story ends as we decide that weight is a matter of individual – not governmental – responsibility.   The individual choice argument is a powerful one for those who do not think that the government needs to “int...