A Stitch in Haste

It's been said that arguing reductio ad absurdum can be dangerous, because your opponent may in fact choose to embrace the absurdity rather than concede defeat.

This might be such a case:

Schools may need more money and regulators may need more authority to help America's children from spiraling into obesity, experts and politicians told Congress on Tuesday.
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"Childhood obesity has reached epidemic proportions," said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican and doctor who also chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.
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"Half-measures won't work. It has to be a comprehensive national response. It is a clarion call to Congress for us to act boldly" [said Iowa Democratic Senator Tom Harkin].

Last week, the Institute of Medicine said it would take a full national effort to battle childhood obesity. The independent group, which advises the federal government on health matters, said food and drink labels need be clearer. It also asked restaurants to come up with more healthy alternatives for children.
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The bill, sponsored by Frist, Dodd and Democratic Sen. Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, would authorize $60 million for a demonstration community obesity program and give the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention more authority to gather information on childhood fitness levels.

At the end of the day, what exactly are we supposed to do about childhood obesity? Educational campaigns, public service announcements, revised school curricula, better gyms, etc., are all very well and good (and expensive), but in fact they are mere warm-fuzzy-feeling bromides.

Sixty million dollars to fund a "demonstration community obesity program" (oh, and whose "community" will that be, by the way?) and to have the CDC do a study hardly constitute a "a comprehensive national response" or "a full national effort."

We all know of course what really would constitute a full national effort: junk food taxes, restrictions on food vending machines comparable to those for cigarette vending machines, advertising restrictions, micromanaging school cafeterias. Perhaps even intervening in the family (i.e., turning overfeeding your kid into "child abuse") or even banning fast food altogether?

Rhetoric can be dangerous. When posturing members of Congress use hyperbole like "epidemic" and "comprehensive national response" ("Alert: We are going to Obesity Threat Level Orange!"), they fuel the flames of hysteria and overreaction that inevitably lead us further toward the Nanny State.

Reason just ran a major piece on the War on Fat -- a must read.

Related Posts:
Mormons Eat Junk Food Too
Caffeine Addiction to Become Mental Disorder?

Kraft Foods (a former corporate sibling of Philip Morris) has found caloric religion:

Kraft Foods Inc. Wednesday said it would stop advertising products like Oreo cookies and Kool-Aid beverages to children younger than 12 as it works to deflect criticism that such foods contribute to childhood obesity.

The move means ads for some of Kraft's best-known snack foods and sugary cereals will no longer appear during television shows such as cartoons, which are viewed primarily by children ages 6 to 11. The change will also affect advertising in radio and print media, Kraft said.

"We recognize that parents are concerned about the mix of food products being advertised to younger children," Mark Berlind, Kraft's executive vice president of global corporate affairs, said in a statement.

Increased media focus on the roughly 15 percent of U.S. children and adolescents and two-thirds of adults who are overweight has led Kraft in the last year to remove artery-clogging trans fats from its snack foods, repackage some in 100-calorie packs, and cease its marketing in schools.

Such moves by Kraft and others in the food industry, which in 2003 saw McDonald's Corp. become the target of a high-profile obesity lawsuit, help insulate companies from litigation blaming specific foods for making people, and particularly children, fat, one expert said.

"The whole area of child nutrition is one where you want to be squeaky clean," said Bob Goldin, executive vice president with food industry research firm Technomic. "That's where there is concern about liability, and certainly public scrutiny."

Of course, the fact that the problem regarding child obesity is not so much the commercials on television, but the television itself, is conveniently ignored. Obese children on average consume the same calories as non-obese kids -- they just exercise less.

But who cares? Parents are off the hook, schools are off the hook, politicians were of course never on the hook in the first place, and now the food companies, seeing a shining lawsuit on a hill, will get off the hook.

The kids, meanwhile, will still get hooked on junk food and will still get fat.

And by the way, I predict that the next target will be those impulse racks at supermarket checkout aisles brimming with candy bars.

Also, a related story today:

Newly revised dietary guidelines issued today by the federal government place a stronger emphasis on calorie control and physical activity than past guidelines to help Americans, many of them overweight, maintain good health.

Balancing nutrients is not enough for a healthy life style, Tommy G. Thompson, the secretary of the department of Health and Human Services, and Ann M. Veneman, the agriculture secretary, said today in announcing the new guidelines. The two secretaries said too many Americans are consuming too much food, pointing out that almost two-thirds of all Americans are overweight or obese.

The new Dietary Guidelines for Americans advises people to reduce their intake, and to exercise for 30 minutes a day to maintain good health, as had past reports. To prevent "gradual, unhealthy body weight gain in adulthood," it recommends exercising 60 minutes per day, and up to 90 minutes for weight loss in adults.

Maybe they should run commercials on children's television.

We all knew it was just a matter of time (WSJ - $) --

A nutrition watchdog group asked the Food and Drug Administration to put tobacco-style labels on sugary sodas and fruit drinks warning that drinking too much of them can lead to excess weight and other health problems.

The petition by the Center for Science in the Public Interest escalates the attack on beverage giants such as Coca-Cola Co. and PepsiCo Inc., blamed by some critics for partly fueling the rise in obesity rates in the U.S. CSPI claimed that sugar-laden beverages also increase the risk of or can contribute to heart disease, tooth decay, osteoporosis and diabetes.

And why exactly should there be such a warning label on soda but not on any and every food and beverage? Eating too much of even the healthiest food can make one overweight.

And, of course, can calls for a special soda tax be far behind? (Actually there already is, at least in my state: the food exemption to the state and local sales taxes does not include soda — i.e., it is subject to the sales tax, while every other non-alcoholic beverage is not. And don't forget bottle deposits.)

UPDATE: Where there's soda, there's usually food --

The Bush administration's reluctance to crack down on ads that sell calorie-laden, high-fat snacks to kids could change if the industry doesn't do a better job of policing itself, the head of the Federal Trade Commission said Thursday.

"If industry fails to demonstrate a good faith commitment to this issue and to take positive steps, others may step in and act in its stead," FTC Chairwoman Deborah Platt Majoras said at a conference on childhood obesity and food marketing.
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Ongoing research by an FTC economist has thrown a new wrinkle into the mix. Pauline Ippolito, associate director of economics at the agency, said that food commercials on children's TV shows have declined by 34 percent since 1977.
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"There appears to be no meaningful enforcement mechanism, no truly independent body with the will and the power to crack down on offenders," said Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, the senior Democrat on the Senate Agriculture Committee.

Of course, "offenders" implies an actual offense, and advertising a legal product is usually a long way from being an "offense."

But so what? Punish them anyway -- after all, they've only reduced their advertising by 34%. Which leaves 66% left to censor in the name of the Politics of the Warm Fuzzy Feeling.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, among the most obnoxious of the nanny-state activist groups, is using a state consumer protection law to — what else — quash yet another entirely legal product:

Parents and advocacy groups today announced their intent to file suit against Viacom and Kellogg to stop them from marketing junk food to young children. The plaintiffs contend that these two companies are directly harming kids' health since the overwhelming majority of food products they market to children are high in sugar, saturated and trans fat, or salt, or almost devoid of nutrients. They will ask a Massachusetts court to enjoin the companies from marketing junk foods to audiences where 15 percent or more of the audience is under age eight, and to cease marketing junk foods through web sites, toy giveaways, contests, and other techniques aimed at that age group.

Some hasty stitches:

--Should one state have the ability to censor broadcast advertising for the other 49? Wait a minute — make that "Should government be able to censor, ever?"

--We already require standardized nutritional labels on our food. Some of the more radical libertarians may not like that law, but look on the bright side: it should provide a safe harbor (i.e., an absolute defense) to claims that labeling of food is somehow "incomplete."

--Consider this quote by one CSPI shill plaintiff parent:

"As a parent, I do my best to get my kids to eat healthy foods," said Sherri Carlson, a plaintiff and mother of three. "But then they turn on Nickelodeon and see all those enticing junk-food ads. Adding insult to injury, we enter the grocery store and see our beloved Nick characters plastered on all those junky snacks and cereals. This irresponsible marketing to young children undermines my efforts as a parent and must be stopped."

I thought it was the kids who were supposed to be the whining brats, not the parents. In any case, show me a fat kid and I'll show you fat parents. Either that, or at the very least lazy or incompetent parents. Ms. Carlson can easily control her kids' caloric intake (not to mention which channels her family watches). And even if for some unnamed reason she can't — too bad so sad. That is not my problem, or yours, or Kellogg's or Nickelodeon's.

Food is not tobacco; underage overeating is not underage drinking. Food — even junk food — is a legal product. It is, when consumed responsibly, a source of utility. It is, when consumed responsibly, harmless. The companies that make it have a right to advertise it.

Ms. Carlson, meanwhile, may have the right to be the benevolent dictator of her minor children. But she does not have the right to be the benevolent dictator of the rest of us.

Hat tip to Hit & Run. More thoughts at Where the Dolphins Play, Cake or Death, Junk Science.

We all know about adding fluoride to the drinking water and Vitamin D to milk. Now the next targets for "enhancement" are our grain products.

Perhaps you have, like me, already sworn off all wheat- and oat-based breakfast cereals ever since General Mills switched to exclusively whole grain in their processing. Sorry, but eating what seems like a bowl of bitter-tasting wet cardboard is simply not worth the calories. It's strictly Corn Flakes and Rice Krispies (and the occasional Cap'n Crunch) from now on.

In the U.K., meanwhile, bread will become the latest weapon in the War on Spinal Diseases:

Folic acid is to be added to bread to cut the number of birth defects like spina bifida, it has been reported.
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[T]he process could cost the industry about £700,000 a year.
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Between 700 and 900 pregnancies in the UK are affected by neural tube defects every year. Countries that have started compulsorily adding folic acid to flour have seen a 30 to 50% drop in the problem. But the vitamin can delay the diagnosis and treatment of vitamin B12 deficiency in older people.

The brief also warned of "general ethical population concerns about the prospect of 'compulsory' or 'mass medication' issues".

Some hasty stitches:

--I have no idea whether adding folic acid to bread and flour will make it taste different, as is the case with the "whole grain" cereal debacle. But I do know that folic acid can come in pill form and is usually included in multi-vitamins. Couldn't the government just give free or low-cost vitamins to pregnant women? Not very libertarian, I know, but certainly better than re-jiggering an entire swath of the food chain for the benefit of perhaps 450 spina bifida babies at best.

--Speaking of "at best," those "other countries" that have added folic acid to flour are mostly poorer, less-developed nations in Central and South America. And even they only achieve "a 30 to 50% drop in the problem." Surely a hyper-developed nation like the U.K. would reap a dramatically lower benefit from such a remedial program.

--Notice that there will be not only the direct £700,000 annual cost, but also the indirect cost to the elderly who might suffer needlessly from Vitamin B12 deficiency. But no matter, some hack bureaucrat has decided that the trade-off is appropriate. Whether you think it's appropriate is of course irrelevant to them.

--Will the U.K. government now recommend (perhaps with public service announcements, perhaps with subsidies) that pregnant women — and everyone else — eat more carbs? Can that possibly be wise? Is the "War Between the War on Obesity and the War on Spina Bifida" a war we should be taking sides in?

--Oh, one more thing: "general ethical population concerns about the prospect of 'compulsory' or 'mass medication' issues." Indeed.

The War on Obesity is bad enough. The Center for Science in the Public Interest is bad enough. Paul Krugman is way more than bad enough. Must all these would-be central planners also centrally plan my sandwich?

...or is it?

Adding weights to children's toys may help them improve their fitness during playtime, the results of a small study suggest.

"This study provides one intervention to the current trend of declining fitness in America's youth," Dr. John C. Ozmun, of Indiana State University and his co-authors write.
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Their study included five boys and five girls, who were an average of 7.5 years old, who were randomly assigned to carry either large, cardboard toy blocks that weighed less than a quarter of a pound or blocks that weighed about 3.4 pounds.

You don't know whether to laugh or cry. Sure, if a Lego piece weighed as much as a bowling ball, then kids might gain quite a bit of upper body strength -- not to mention a few hernias -- playing with them.

You can devise your own twists -- "Embrace the Absurdity," "The Politics of the Warm Fuzzy Feeling" and "My Tax Dollars Pay for Studies Like This?" come to mind.

I'm going for Curtain #1 -- Embrace the Absurdity. Did anyone bother to think about the economics of heavy toys? I don't have kids (due to my stunted soul), but I have a dog, so I do know something about toys. And one of the things I know is that big, heavy toys are more expensive than little lightweight toys. It's almost as if the material inputs that go into a product affect its price. Someone should look into that.

If childhood obesity has a disparate impact on the poor, then perhaps the solution should not be to make their toys more expensive. Just a thought.