Today on Never Say Diet, I’m trying to figure out if “war on obesity” tactics like a junk food tax and restrictions on food advertising to kids will be good for our body image along with our physical health.
It’s a tricky one, since right off the bat, you know I have some differences of opinion on whether it’s really a war on obesity or more of a war on heart disease, cancer and diabetes where we seem to be needlessly fixated on bathroom scales and Body Mass Indexes. Sort of like those weapons of mass destruction that nobody ever found.
But I like public health initiatives that go after the industries profiting off our poor health rather than sticking individual sick people with yet another guilt trip about how they’re fat and it’s all their fault. So I think this time, we’re all on the same side. Isn’t that a nice way to end the week?
Of course whether the diet and fast food industries will ever let such ideas become actual enforceable laws is an entirely separate question, with, I fear, a less happy answer. Just ask Mayor Bloomberg.