The choice is yours
The pointy-heads say: Eat up-it's SOCIETY'S FAULT we're overweight… For all the ink I give to the growing (no pun intended) problem of obesity, you'd think I would have become desensitized to the disease by now-that I'd no longer be so shocked by the obscene prevalence of this epidemic. But I haven't. I will always marvel at people's willingness to keep eating all the wrong things while ignoring what they see in the mirror… And I'll always be amazed at their ability to blame others (the food industry, their parents, the movies, etc.) for the problem. Naturally, the trial lawyers have gotten involved. Funny, isn't it, that whenever people make victims of themselves, these jackals always turn up to try to make a few bucks from it? (Remember all those tobacco settlements? For the most part, that money ended up in attorneys' pockets-and in certain state's coffers!) But it isn't just the bloodsucking lawyers and their bloated clients who are pointing the finger-it's also the social scientists. According to a recent New York Times online article (yes, I read the Times-and occasionally even find something in it I agree with), a large body of evidence suggests that a lack of willpower isn't the problem when it comes to obesity. What's at fault, you ask? Equal parts socialization and marketing, say the sociologists. In a nutshell: Americans are conditioned pretty much from birth (socialized) to be receptive to the concept of VALUE-the idea that it's always better to get more of something for your money. And how is this notion most often reinforced? Through the marketing of products like Big Gulp soft drinks and Super-sized, value-priced fast food meals, according to the pointy-heads. I'm not disagreeing with them on this point, but… That's the way of the free market world-the way of healthy competition. Where would we be if companies weren't allowed to undercut each other's prices or offer more of their product for the same money? This is what drives the economy, technology, and everything that's GOOD about capitalism. It's what has made America great, and the most dominant economic presence in the world-by many times over. Look, don't get me wrong. I've harangued long and loud about all the junk-food marketing around us-especially the bombardment of advertising aimed at children. I think it's deplorable, and that the food industry should hang its head in shame… However, we can't ban or over-regulate perfectly legal marketing practices (remember-they're not selling Cocoa Puffs as a health food!) without shaking the very foundation of what made American capitalism the envy of the world. And that's exactly what will happen if the lawyers are allowed to profit from the "victim mentality" of modern obesity. Keep reading… The way to solve the obesity problem-as I've always said-is through the very same free market these sociologists are claiming caused it. We'll let our dollars do the talking. Think about it: If we stop buying nutrition-free, refined junk foods (and spend our money instead on healthier, natural, unprocessed foodstuffs), these health menaces would disappear all by themselves-along with the obesity problem. Seriously, why couldn't we just stand up, scream "ENOUGH!" and stop buying and eating all the junk? We could. After all, nobody's holding guns to our heads when we buy those bags of Oreos. The cops don't set up roadblocks and orange traffic cones to funnel us into the drive-thru lane, do they? Of course not-we make these choices for ourselves. Marketing and advertising may make us more aware of unhealthy diet options, but we ourselves choose them. (If only it were this cut-and-dried when it comes to drug marketing-now THERE'S something I wish the lawyers would seize upon.) The truth is that there's simply nothing stopping us from making the RIGHT choices when it comes to our diet and health. The bottom line is this: It's up to us to break the obesity cycle, not a bunch of circling lawyer-vultures. But it's going to take a bit of work-like some good old-fashioned parental guidance (remember that?) about smart eating habits for our kids, a reigning-in of the wrong-minded dietary information our government is disseminating to all of us, and a re-embracement of the idea of personal accountability… In other words, a return to everything it USED to mean to be an American. Doing my talking with legal tender-not legal "benders,"
William Campbell Douglass II, MD | 
