Obesity: Simply a matter of willpower, or is something else behind this growing health problem?
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NWHF Staff
| Posted on: April 7th, 2009
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Economic Issues •
Education •
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Food & Nutrition •
Public Health
Dr. Deborah A. Cohen has a problem with the idea that people who are overweight just don’t have enough self-control. She is one of the physicians leading the investigation into the myth of willpower and the sometimes-subtle influence our environment has on our eating habits.
Everyone knows that the way to lose weight is to eat less and exercise more. So what’s the problem, right? Well, the problem is that our environment is constantly giving us triggers to eat: there are vending machines and fast-food outlets everywhere. Food is plentiful and cheap, particularly fattening food. Advertising hammers home this message of abundance. It’s only natural for humans in such an environment to eat more, even just slightly more, than they need. This adds up over time to skyrocketing numbers of obese and overweight children and adults. Unless we acknowledge this aspect of the battle of the bulge (which the majority of Americans are losing), we’re missing the chance to make an impact on our eating habits and our health. Of course, the environment isn’t everything, but we believe an environment that makes choosing the healthy option easier will help reduce obesity and all the related chronic diseases that are currently costing our society so much. What do you believe?
Read an LA Times article about the food environment here, and Dr. Cohen’s provocative Washington Post op-ed about the food industry’s role in fattening up America here.
If you’d like to learn more about Dr. Cohen’s work, come to her presentation: this Friday, April 10, when Dr. Cohen will discuss her research on this subject at PSU.
But in the meantime, tell us what you think. Is overweight and obesity a problem of willpower, or are our best efforts to eat right undermined by our environment?
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