Comments on: Legislating Obesity: Can You? Should You?

By: Lisa Johnson

Lisa Johnson — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 12:30:35 +0000

PJ, I’m sorry you had to learn the hard way but it’s awesome that you’re doing so much for your family. Kudos to you and I’m glad you found us. I write about obesity fairly often, it’s a topic near and dear to my heart. I lost 42 pounds after the birth of my son and it took 2 years to get it all off! Since then I’ve crept back up about 15 pounds and I’m working to get that off now … I get where you’re coming from. Let me know if I can help in any way :-) L–

By: PJ Mullen

PJ Mullen — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 03:43:34 +0000

Hi Lisa, found your blog through 3T. Great post. I definitely agree that we need to let the food companies have it as consumers by not buying the prepackaged, processed nonsense they are shilling in the name of convenience.

I’m a SAHD to my son and he gets very little in the way of processed foods. He loves the Clif Z bars for kids, but I otherwise keep him eating fresh fruits and vegetables. I even make all of my wife’s lunches for the week from scratch so she doesn’t have to fall into the convenience food trap. People ask me all the time how I find the time to do this, but it might take me an hour every week to prepare her meals in advance.

The reason why I’m so sensitive to this is because as an young adult I developed the worst eating habits and worked jobs that kept me at a desk or on the road 80 hours a week. I’ve always been a bigger guy, but I ballooned up to a ridiculous weight. I still have a ways to go, but have lost about 75 pounds since that time.

If people would think or get more informed about the things they eat it would help out tremendously.

By: Lisa Johnson

Lisa Johnson — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 02:10:53 +0000

I am a big fan of Food Rules! L–

By: Patrick

Patrick — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 02:10:07 +0000

David, I think you’re quite right. You might want to pick up a copy of Food Rules by Michael Pollan or see my post on my top 10 Favorite Food Rules. One of them is eat your meals at home. You have much more control over what you put in your body if you’re the one who serves it on the plate. Better portion sizes, better food going into the dish, healthier oils, significantly less sugar and salt. L–

By: Lisa Johnson

Lisa Johnson — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 01:49:18 +0000

it’s a really complex issue when you look at the school lunch program and throw in farm subsidies, Big Farms, factory production, etc. This is not an easy fix. I was saying today, that Americans looked the other way for decades. We assumed the US government was looking out for our kids when instead what was happening was food lobbying groups gradually adding loopholes here and loopholes there that got them to where they are today. Making a ton of money at the expense of our children’s health. It’s despicable and it has to stop. I am definitely not done blogging about this!

Lisa

By: Wendy Maynard

Wendy Maynard — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 06:04:16 +0000

I think this is such a complex issue. We eat pretty darn healthy in my house. Lots of organic veggies. I can’t remember the last time I went to a fast food restaurant. And so I send my toddler to pre-school with healthy food. I was talking with the owner and she says lots of parents give their kids Lunchables. And I believe that the parents think they are giving their kids something that is good for them. But Lunchables are highly processed, high calorie, high sodium, hiugh fat, and high sugar, with a lot of packaging to go in the landfill to boot.

Lunchables help contribute to the obesity in this country, I have no doubt. Here is a link to a great article: http://bit.ly/9RVohi

And to me, here is where things get complex. Toddlers get fed lunchables. They get addicted to high calorie, low nutrition food. Their parents probably eat the adult version. When a person is 2 and 3, they not only grow their fat cells larger, they actually multiply the number of fat cells they have in their body. This makes for a fat kid who will have an even harder time losing weight.

With these patterns, you have set up such problems at such a young age that obesity becomes so much harder to conquer than simple diet changes. I don’t think most people understand enough about nutrition to regulate “what they put in their mouth.”

I think education is a big part of it. And I think we need to be more conscious of the companies we are hiring to cook the foods in public schools. I also think we need to encourage people to exercise!

So many factors….

By: Amy

Amy — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 07:08:08 +0000

I just had a great twitter response from @CSPenn … Poli sci prof Stanley Michalak: You can’t legislate morality, but you can tax the hell out of vice. Thought that was a great answer. Maybe that’s the best way to go?

Any other thoughts? L–

By: Lisa Johnson

Lisa Johnson — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 23:57:24 +0000

Any other thoughts? L–

By: Dansull123

Dansull123 — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 22:10:57 +0000

At heart I’m a hedonist, I think legislated morality is based in ancient religions that serve no purpose in modern society. The cost of health care should be moot because our government should be guaranteeing health care to every citizen, and not waging wars that aren’t defending our soil. I can get behind banning HFCs, not because they are unhealthy, but because they make everything taste like crap, real sugar tastes better. Don’t get me started on “sin tax” its bad enough they tax the crap out of cigs and booze for no good reason other than to give the governing bodies higher salaries.

By: David Johnson

David Johnson — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 21:16:29 +0000

I’ll do that. Thank you, once again, for the advice.