Obesity in the Headlines

March 16, 2004 - Cleveland Plain Dealer

Could menu simplification' save us from our super selves?

One thing you can count on: 100 years from now, some one will release a study showing that diet and activity are related to weight, and it will be greeted with amazement. Some things never change.

If your food is supersized, you will be, too.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently released a study saying Americans are getting fatter because we eat more of everything than we did 30 years ago. Men consume about 7 percent more calories than they did 30 years ago, or about 20 percent more than recommended, and women are eating 22 percent more a day, the equivalent of one Egg McMuffin.

The CDC found that obesity has almost caught up with tobacco as the most serious health risk facing Americans. Two out of three adults are overweight.

Dr. Elias Zerhouni, director of the National Institutes of Health, called obesity a "public health emergency" responsible for about 17 percent of preventable deaths. Obese Americans cost $75 billion in weight-related medical bills last year, of which taxpayers paid about half.

In response, the World Health Organization has advocated more aggressive government action, such as restricting food marketing to children and promoting healthier foods. In the United States, however, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson put the emphasis on "personal responsibility," unveiling a public-service ad campaign to promote eating right.

What we really need, as suggested in this space some months ago, is a U.S. Department of Portion Control some sort of Bureau of Standards for fast food and convenience food that would let people know what they're getting.

Even without getting into subjects like trans fat, palm oil and high-fructose corn syrup, it might surprise consumers.

Not to pick on McDonald's, but studies have shown that its small vanilla shake has 50 more calories than it did a decade ago. The Big Mac has 60 more. An order of fries has 50 more calories. And the largest "value" size is almost triple the small order, which once was the only size offered.

But it's scaling back. Slightly. McDonald's announced last week it will phase out Supersize portions this year, dropping the depth-charge-size super soda and trimming an ounce from Supersize fries. The company cited "menu simplification" - which could go down with "wardrobe malfunction" as one of the year's dandy new expressions - but also acknowledged that downsizing fries was "part of our healthy lifestyle initiative."

The wider suspicion, denied by McDonald's, was that "menu simplification" came in response to pressure from health advocates, lawsuits and the new documentary "Super Size Me," in which filmmaker Morgan Spurlock gains 27 pounds in a month of eating nothing but McDonald's food.

Regardless, it's a first step, if a small one. In a public health emergency, we have to wonder why obesity isn't treated like such problems as tobacco and alcohol.

Shouldn't workers be forced to join smokers outside if they want to eat junk food on the job? Can't scales at restaurant entrances, like those for trucks, flag people who need to be downsized? Or slam the doors shut? Couldn't special license plates, like the yellow tags for DUI offenders, identify the supersized at drive-through windows?

Maybe markings on driver's licenses, like those for bad vision, could indicate whether someone has exceeded the legal limit. And students should have to make weight to advance to the next grade level.

Of course, those would be extreme measures, and lawmakers facing a health emergency framed a different response last week. The Ohio House passed a bill protecting the food industry from lawsuits blaming it for obesity and health problems, of which a handful have been filed and thrown out of court.

And, after a hearing followed by a lunch thrown by the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation, lawmakers rejected an amendment that would have required fast-food restaurants to post nutritional information.

So much for my Bureau of Standards, and so much for informed consumers.