Should Government Tell You What to Eat?
July/August 2007
by Kelly D. Brownell
Kelly D. Brownell is a professor of psychology,
epidemiology, and public health and director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy
and Obesity. He was named by Time magazine in 2006 as one of the “world’s 100 most influential people.”
It already does. Government tells us what to eat in
both its words and actions and has been doing so for decades, with decidedly
mixed messages. Its words are wholesome: eat a balanced diet, eat in
moderation, eat fruits and vegetables—it’s all there in the food guide
pyramid, to the extent anyone can decipher it. But actions speak louder than
words and, in the case of government policies, have much more concrete and
powerful effects. And government actions on food policy often undermine its own
advice. This is one reason why the country has made a rapid transition, in just
four decades, from undernutrition to overnutrition as the chief food problem.
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The cost differentials between healthy and unhealthy food are growing worse. |
Farm subsidies are an example. Back in the Nixon
administration, the government began an effort to help farmers and boost
American agriculture by providing subsidies for some crops, led by corn and
soybeans. Payments to farmers are now more than $22 billion. This helps make
America the world’s leading producer of corn (11 billion bushels this year),
but has some surprising effects that the original architects of the policy
could not anticipate.
A trip to McDonald’s today will cost you more to buy
a salad and drink than a Quarter Pounder with Cheese meal that has a soft drink
and fries. The government encourages one of these meals and not the other. Corn
and soybean subsidies help to feed the cow that offers up the hamburger, to
sweeten the large soft drink with high-fructose corn syrup, and to produce the
oil that cooks fried foods. There is little subsidy of the vegetables in the
salad.
The cost differentials between healthy and unhealthy
food are growing worse. From 1985 to 2000, the cost of soft drinks rose by 20
percent and the cost of sugar and sweets rose 46 percent. But the cost of
fruits and vegetables rose by 117 percent.
Government can also be decisive through inaction.
Most notably, it demurs to industry in failing to regulate the relentless and
powerful food marketing directed at children. Science shows that such marketing
is contributing to poor diet and obesity, which are perhaps the largest health
threat to America’s children. In contrast, government steps in to require child
safety restraints in cars, immunizations of schoolchildren, and industry's
ability to market tobacco, alcohol, and explicit materials to children.
Yet the health toll from poor nutrition is right up
there with any of the others. Two-thirds of Americans are now overweight or
obese. Harvard scientists predict that poor diet and physical inactivity may
make today’s children the first generation in the nation’s history to lead
shorter lives than their parents did.
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The food industry argues that we risk becoming a “nanny state.” |
There are, however, some hopeful signs. Increasingly
Americans are holding the food industry accountable for its practices, particularly
those involving children. Kellogg’s just agreed, under pressure from advocacy
groups, to stop marketing unhealthy foods to children. New York City has banned
trans fats in restaurants, school systems are kicking out soft drinks and fast
food, and there is even talk of using small taxes on unhealthy foods such as
soft drinks to help fund nutrition programs. These changes, combined with the
interest of increasingly savvy consumers in healthier foods, have started to
change the behavior of some companies.
But much more change is needed. What should
government do? Some honest self-assessment would be a good start—an
objective evaluation of how government food policies affect health. Several
paths of action would likely emerge:
- Move nutrition policy and programs from the U.S. Department of
Agriculture to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The USDA is
typically headed by someone from the food or agriculture industry and exists to
promote the business of agriculture: to sell as much food as possible.
- Make health a key factor in agriculture policy.
- Regulate food marketing directed at children.
- Create incentives that help consumers buy healthy food, instead of
incentives that make the worst foods cheapest.
- Give the food industry credit when its practices promote public health,
and hold it accountable for practices that damage health.
Sensible food policies can create conditions that
make it easy for people to make healthy choices. Opponents of such policies—who
come mainly from the food industry and groups it supports—argue that
government should not tell us what to eat, that we risk becoming a “nanny
state,” and that personal liberties will be trampled.
This position assumes that government has not been
telling us what to eat. But the opposite is true. Government has a role, by any
standard. Significant change is necessary to make it a positive role.  |
