Health Experts Warn of Obesity Pandemic

The opening sessions of an international conference on obesity described the global spread of obesity as a problem bigger than global warming, a problem that threatens to overwhelm the medical systems of the world, a problem that has resulted in the number of overweight people worldwide exceeding the total number of undernourished people.

I am sorry for the absence of posts, but I have been trying to get my head around a global obesity epidemic. I mean what is that? How does it spread? Do you get it from toilet seats? unprotected sex? My neice can tend to be chunky, does she get something from me when I give her a kiss?

And I can't help but to wonder where I fit into the picture. Clearly if I died from a avian flu pandemic no one would blame me, would they? Wouldn't I just be a victim of random chance? But with an obesity epidemic it seems like I have a lot more responsibility for my condition. Why is that? What exactly is the nature of that responsibility?

We know some things about the nature of the epidemic:

The idea that obesity is the outcome of the availability of cheap food may have some substance. Consider that while obesity is now a significant factor in nations rich and poor, in developed nations the fat tend to be poor while in developing nations, it's the rich that tend toward obesity. The New York Times article addressing the robust modern American also talked about the scarcity of food 100 years ago.

And here I would like to offer an original thought, a suggestion. Is there anything to the idea that the increase in the incidence of obesity is related to the coincidental decline in smoking? It's not only the US that's restricting smoking, even the pubs in Ireland have banned smoking. And France, the most cigarette-friendly nation in the western world, is about to impose smoking restricitions. And I know for a fact that a great deal of the oral gratification of smoking can be saited with food...

One thing that the epidemic is not necessarily related to is junk food. The great hue and cry now is that it's the sugar that's causing obesity in youth. But I want to emphasize again, that I know, from personal experience, that you can be obese while eating a diet of so-called healthy food. My only point is that quantity as well as quality makes a difference, and to focus exclusively on quality misses much of the point.

But one thing that I am giving more and more emphasis to is exercise. My own immediate experience has been that exercaise, and exercise alone, has held my diet together through a month of unrestricted eating. And as I look back over my own life I see that as my exercise declined from that of an athlete in high school to a total couch potato in 45 years later, there was a definite coincident increase in my weight. So it may well be true that the idea that we have to work less physically hard than our ancestors has a significant bearing on our weight today. And as a specific example: China has joined the obesity parade, and who's getting fat in China? the city workers, not the pesants. Supports the ideas of a) plentiful affordable food, b) status symbol in a developing country 3) less physical labor...

[due to other obligations, I am publishing this article as is, in rough form, and I will complete it over the next day or so - in particular I want to address the role of social norms. In the meantime, I invite comments, statistics and references that could hep define the nature of a pandemic of obesity.]