From the Huffington Post: How The Obesity Focus Hurts the Health Movement

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andy-bellatti/obesity-crisis_b_1899292.html

How The Obesity Focus Hurts the Health Movement

Andy Bellatti

"Another week, another "obesity is the enemy and it's going to kill us all!" message. Earlier this week, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation released the statistic that by 2030, adult obesity rates could be as high as 60 percent in 13 U.S. states. The grim prediction went viral within what seemed like minutes.

In many people's eyes, this could serve as a public health "wake-up call." I don't agree; if anything, in large part due to our society's obsession with obesity (whether with endless commitments and promises to "end it" or body-shaming "humor"), many of us have become desensitized to such catastrophic information. Hasn't every American by now seen the famous Centers for Disease Control and Prevention color-coded obesity maps? Haven't we all been exposed to endless TV specials on obesity, complete with stock video footage of overweight people (from the neck down) walking on a crowded sidewalk or stopping at a crosswalk?

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So, how do we step up conversations about public health to tackle true problems rather than symptoms? Rather than an aimless war against obesity, efforts should instead be used towards a movement "for" something. Such a movement can't afford to be vague. A movement "for health," for instance, can too easily be easily appropriated by the food industry ("Baked Cheetos are healthy!") and quickly nosedive.

The "war on obesity" is in desperate need of reframing and reconceptualization if it hopes to progress and fix some gargantuan wrongs.

To move forward, we must focus on -- and voice support for -- concrete concepts, such as accessibility to healthful foods for disenfranchised communities, regulations that don't make it so easy for Big Food to have almost unilateral control on health messaging, and agricultural policy that supports nutrition policy. While we're at it, let's make it clear that public health threats (from genetically modified foods to high intakes of sugar) are equally real for everyone, regardless of waist size."