Fighting Unhealthy Eating...
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 9:47 PM

...by limiting the number of holes in salt shakers? That seems to be the plan in the British town of Rochdale. Turns out that next week is National Salt Awareness Week, so the Rochdale council gave out five-hole salt shakers -- the standard ones have 17 or 18 holes, we are told -- to thirteen local eateries, for a six week trial. There is evidence that small "architectural" changes like this can alter the amount that people eat, so I would not be surprised to see salt consumption fall markedly -- and even if it doesn't , the restaurant patrons will get more exercise shaking out their salt portions. I might prefer that this experiment be undertaken without government involvement, but I can't join the chorus complaining about this latest expansion of Britain's nanny state. I did enjoy one point raised by the Adam Smith Institute post, however: the new "risk of your chips going cold in the process of trying to get a decent amount of salt on them."

Labels: Britain, obesity

 
A New British Lottery?
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 11:03 PM

No, not that one to pay for the London Olympics (later complemented by a more straightforward raid on National Lottery proceeds). This lottery is proposed to get people to vote -- or as those wacky Brits say, to "incentivise" voting. The suggestion to use gambling to lure punters to the polls survived a filter that screened out the possibility of doughnut giveaways because -- I am not making this up -- of concerns about obesity.

The linked Guardian article doesn't mention that the Yanks had the lottery idea first (though California's primacy in doughnut distribution merits notice); Arizona voters, uncompensated, didn't care for the idea.

Labels: Arizona, Britain, lottery, obesity

 
Redfining Success Downwards on British Childhood Obesity
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 11:45 PM

"By 2020, we aim to reduce the proportion of overweight and obese children to 2000 levels." That's the British public health minister, as quoted in the Guardian. The earlier goal was to eliminate child obesity by 2010, so this is a rather severe adjustment. The issue is in the news because of the release of a report based on a two-year study. Among the policy proposals -- see the list on the sidebar of this Financial Times article -- is a tax calibrated to the fat content of food. I don't have a principled objection to such fat taxes, but I am pretty skeptical about their ability to function well in practice.

Labels: Britain, obesity, taxes

 
Alcohol, Obesity Health News: What to Believe?
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 7:09 PM

(1) Moderate drinking might not bring cardiovascular health benefits after all.

(2) Obesity, recently thought to be the second biggest preventable cause of death in the US (after tobacco), has now been dropped to seventh place. And being a bit overweight might confer some health benefits. (No word on what happens if you become moderately obese by drinking moderate amounts of beer -- the query caused all the computers to lock up.)

Labels: alcohol, obesity

 
Department of Long-Term Forecasts by Academics
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 3:30 PM

"Life expectancy in the United States is set to drop within the next 50 years due to obesity, one of the world's top experts on the subject said yesterday." More here.

Labels: obesity

 
Vice is Elsewhere
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 12:25 PM

I mentioned before that I have been guest blogging at Overlawyered this week. Recent posts include:

(1) Obese Arkansas Schoolkids

(2) Vice Law Revolutions

(3) A Different Sort of Zero Tolerance Tale

(4) Alcohol Prohibition v. Drug Prohibition

(5) More on Alcohol Taxation.

Labels: obesity, Prohibition, solipsism, taxes, zero tolerance

 
Obesity Treatments Might Receive Medicare Coverage
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 4:44 PM

This has been front page news, so I imagine that Vice Squad readers have already heard all about it. Until yesterday's announcement, treatments (such as special diets or stomach stapling) for obesity had not been eligible for Medicare coverage. Now, they will be eligible, if the clinical evidence that the treatments are effective is deemed sufficient. As it will take some time to gather the evidence and make the determination, the coverage will not go into effect overnight. (I learned in the first linked article that since 2002, the IRS has accepted payments for obesity treatments as deductible expenses.)

The Center for Consumer Freedom is not enamored by the declaration of obesity as a disease.

Incidentally, the Summer 2004 issue of Public Interest includes a short article by Inas Rashad and Michael Grossman entitled "The Economics of Obesity." (Though I am as guilty as the next person, let me register an objection to any title that starts out "The Economics of..." Economics, to paraphrase Keynes, is a method, not a doctrine; there can be many economic analyses of some phenomenon but not "the" economics of the phenomenon. Of course, Keynes titled a book "The General Theory of..."; I prefer Adam Smith's "An Inquiry into...") The authors (along with co-researchers) have identified increased eating out and, interestingly, decreased smoking as major causes of the American obesity epidemic: "each 10 percent increase in the real price of cigarettes produces a 2 percent increase in the number of obese people, other things being equal." I also learned from the article that technically speaking, "obese child" is an oxymoron: kids can be overweight, but the term "obese" is used only for adults.

Vice Squad has looked at obesity every now and then, as on March 11.

Labels: obesity, tobacco

 
First They Subsidize Obscene Songs...
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 7:27 PM

...and then Australian politicos defend Big Macs!

"There is nothing wrong with eating McDonald's, it is how much McDonald's you eat that is the problem," [Australian Prime Minister] Mr Howard pronounced in the House of Representatives after shadow health minister Julia Gillard and Opposition Leader Mark Latham renewed their calls to have junk food advertisements banned....

"Where does it end? Do you put a ban on wine? Do you put a ban on alcohol? Coffee, too, because that has caffeine in it."

Mr. Howard, you might be careful about even mentioning bans on wine and coffee, as it is not like they are unknown to history. I understand that even today there are still isolated parts of the world -- like much of the American South and the Middle East -- where wine is banned. Not sure if there are any current coffee bans, however.

In case you missed the reference to the subsidized song, here's the link to an earlier Vice Squad post.

Labels: marketing, obesity, Prohibition

 
Vice is Elsewhere
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 5:48 PM

Sorry for the light blogging lately; one factor, though not really a particularly relevant one so far, is that I am guest blogging at Crescat Sententia this week -- and, rather dangerously, I have even veered off of vice.

But I will try not to neglect the loyal Vice Squad reader. For instance, you might want to check out this post at FuturePundit that ties US obesity to trade restrictions. (Many other countries are getting more obese, too, though they are lagging behind the good ol' USA.)

Labels: Crescat, obesity, solipsism

 
Obesity and ....Gay Marriage?
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 10:46 AM

The UK has gone obesity wacky (or anti-obesity wacky) lately. Here's an article in today's Observer suggesting that this week's anti-obesity craze should have happened when the Observer launched its Fit for the Future campaign last September. The current handwringing follows this week's publication of a report on obesity from the British Parliament's Select Committee on Health. Here's the first paragraph from the Introduction to the report:

With quite astonishing rapidity, an epidemic of obesity has swept over England. To describe what has happened as an epidemic may seem far-fetched. That word is normally applied to a contagious disease that is rapidly spreading. But the proportion of the population that is obese has grown by almost 400% in the last 25 years. Around two-thirds of the population are now overweight or obese. On present trends, obesity will soon surpass smoking as the greatest cause of premature loss of life. It will bring levels of sickness that will put enormous strains on the health service, perhaps even making a publicly funded health service unsustainable.

The Intro also, er, introduces Vice Squad to a new term: "A generation is growing up in an obesogenic environment in which the forces behind sedentary behaviour are growing, not declining." (The new term is "obesogenic," not "sedentary"; sedentary I know.)

Now Vice Squad is no fan of obesity, despite last weekend's post about the obesity contrarian. So it would be nice to know what is causing this trend towards obesity. Vice Squad noted one answer a while back, but now a new hypothesis has been floated:

Lord Tebbit, an influential conservative leader in England, continued his tirade against gay men on Thursday by claiming the country's current "obesity epidemic" can be blamed on the government's support for "buggery."

Thanks to Alas, a Blog for the pointer.

Labels: Britain, marriage, obesity, sex

 
The Obesity Contrarian
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 10:41 AM

Today the World Health Organization decided to initiate a global campaign against obesity. Is this a good idea?

Until recently, increased average weight was beneficial for health -- undernourishment was a much more pressing concern than obesity from a public health perspective. This may still be the case in most countries today. In rich countries, however, undernourishment is no longer as severe, while obesity rates have risen. The US has seen major increases in obesity for 40 years, with the bulk of the increase occurring in the last two decades. In March, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report claiming that some 400,000 deaths per year were associated with obesity. Surely such carnage should put obesity near the top of our public health concerns.

Or maybe not. Paul Campos, for one, isn't buying it, as indicated by the title of his recent book, The Obesity Myth. An edited excerpt appeared last month in The Guardian, and is available on-line here.

Campos suggests that the standard measure of obesity, the Body Mass Index (BMI), is itself quite flawed. The index is computed by taking your weight measured in kilograms and dividing it by the square of your height measured in meters. A BMI of 25 or more is generally interpreted as signalling an "overweight" condition, while BMIs of 30 or above are generally interpreted to signal "obesity". But as Campos points out, this crude measure leads to absurd results in individual cases: "According to the public health establishment's current BMI definitions, Brad Pitt, Michael Jordan and Mel Gibson are all 'overweight', while Russell Crowe, George Clooney and baseball star Sammy Sosa are all 'obese'." Campos also argues that the scientific evidence does not support the contention that a BMI above 25 is bad for one's health -- though those who are quite obese, with BMI's in the mid-30s and above, are at increased health risk. There is much more to Campos's critique, including a look at those parties (medical and pharmaceutical industries) that would seem to have a pecuniary interest in hyping the dangers of obesity, and the class origins of America's current anti-fat crusade: "The disgust the thin upper classes feel for the fat lower classes has nothing to do with mortality statistics and everything to do with feelings of moral superiority." I highly recommend The Guardian excerpt for those who would like to develop a fuller understanding of Campos's position.

Labels: obesity, WHO

 
Vice Is Elsewhere in Blogistan
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 11:43 PM

Will Baude at Crescat Sententia links to an NPR interview with I. Nelson Rose, an expert on gambling law, concerning the legal (er, illegal) status of NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament pools. A column in Tuesday's Chicago Tribune (registration required) segues from NCAA pools to the sad story of one-time NFL quarterback Art Schlichter: "The No. 1 draft choice of the Baltimore Colts in 1982, Schlichter gambled away his $350,000 signing bonus. In 1983 he was suspended for a year by the NFL for gambling. From 1987-94 he was arrested four times on charges of bank fraud, unlawful gambling and writing bad checks." Schlichter currently is in prison.

Also at CS, Amanda Butler looks at US and British developments in obesity policy; Overlawyered summarizes some of the discussion about Congress's effort to ban obesity class-action lawsuits aimed at fast food establishments. (Vice Squad's most recent obesity entry was last week -- oops, perhaps this is the most recent VS obesity entry?)

Crim Law on March 14 presented 4 interesting vice-related tales, including the seizure of 7 tons of cocaine (gee, do you think they got all of it?) and a reprimand of the West from Iran for our lack of rigor in prosecuting the drug war.

If things go well, some more blog-borrowings tomorrow.

Labels: cocaine, gambling, obesity

 
Obesity (with update)
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 6:09 PM

All sorts of movement on the obesity front recently. A few days ago, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released their report showing that physical inactivity and poor diet are on their way to catching tobacco as the leading behavioral causes of death. CDC estimates that in 2000, some 435,000 Americans died from tobacco-related causes, with obesity behind another 400,000 deaths; alcohol claimed 85,000, while illicit drugs were connected to 17,000 deaths. One day after the report was released, the US House of Representatives passed a bill (Los Angeles Times story, registration required) that would forbid class action lawsuits attempting to hold the fast-food industry responsible for obesity in their customers. Some states have already adopted similar legislation, while other states have related bills under consideration. Here's an article about Ohio's measure; Wisconsin, Washington, and Florida also are among those states with pending legislation. Meanwhile, McDonald's has announced that it is phasing out super-size portions (no word on the super-duper-size), while the Swiss are considering a tax on fatty foods.

The standard off-the-shelf economics approach to all this, of course, is to ask, well, what's wrong with obesity? Eating mounds of food and not exercising are consumer choices, and as long as there is no deception taking place, there's not much of a case for government intervention (or for those blame-the-seller lawsuits). But such reasoning only applies if we can trust the "rationality" of decisions to eat and (not) exercise. How could we make an argument that such choices are not rational? One approach might be to note that our tastes for food evolved over eons in which food was harder to procure than it is now -- sugar itself did not become a global commodity until relatively recent times. So our appetites are not well suited to the new situation of food abundance that characterizes today's rich nations. Alternatively, one could make the same sort of “self-control” (dynamic inconsistency) argument that comes up in looking at consumption of addictive products.

A recent article in the Journal of Economic Perspectives (Vol. 17, No. 3, Summer 2003), “Why Have Americans Become More Obese?,” by David M. Cutler, Edward L. Glaeser and Jesse M. Shapiro, attributes American weight gain to improvements in the mass production of food and a resulting increase in caloric consumption (calories expended have not changed much in the last 20 years). These authors argue that for most people, these technological changes have been welfare-improving, even though they have contributed to obesity. Only people with extreme self-control problems, according to the article, would find themselves worse off from the technological improvement in centralized food preparation, and as there is little evidence for such extreme preferences, most Americans have benefited, just as naive economic reasoning would suggest.

Update: Vice Squad has looked at obesity policy in the past; oh, and another look was taken during my guest stint at Crescat Sententia. Overlawyered has a post on the House vote, with reams of useful links. The Adam Smith Institute fills us in on developments in the UK, where food advertising is attracting regulatory attention.

Labels: dynamic inconsistency, obesity

 
Clarence Darrow on Prohibition (I)
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 1:04 PM

I just finished reading Clarence Darrow's autobiography, The Story of My Life
(New York: Scribner's, 1960 [1932]), which I enjoyed way beyond my expectations.
Some of the special payoff comes from the local color, in that I live in
Darrow's old neighborhood. But the vice-specific material in the autobiography
also provided a lift. Darrow took the John Stuart Mill approach to self-regarding
actions, it seems. He was a fervent opponent of alcohol Prohibition, and even
co-authored a book (which I have not read) attacking national Prohibition. But
he has plenty to say about Prohibition in his autobiography, too. The Story of
My Life was originally published in 1932, while Prohibition still ruled the
land.

Darrow highlights the contradiction between the gluttony that he attributes to
many temperance reformers and their stern warnings about touching even a drop
of alcohol, even though "There were always more graves filled from overeating
than from over-drinking..." [This is recognized, incidentally, in the modern
day US, where obesity leads to more early deaths than alcohol.] Picking up
again, from page 287 (of the 1960 Scribner's edition, not the more recent edition
linked above)...

"Puritanism has always associated pleasure with sin. To the real Puritan, life
is a grim, depressing duty; this earth is nothing but a preparatory school
for entering heaven. And to be happy in heaven, one must be unhappy here.
So the old revivalist and temperance reformer had no difficulty in holding
up the drunkard as a horrible example: Just see how happy and carefree and
unmeddlesome he was; always so satisfied with his lot in life and willing
that every one else should do as he liked; naturally there was something
wrong with such a method of living. The glutton dragged himself to the
meeting and shouted "Amen!" in the right places, a friend to heartburn but
not to hiccough....

Devouring all the food that one could hold was praiseworthy. But drinking
liquor, even one mouthful, was damnable....

It was on this popular foundation that prohibitionists organized their
forces and waged the campaign to destroy the liberties of American
citizens. It was on this foundation that they foisted upon the United
States a reign of terror, intimidation, violence, and bigotry unprecedented
in the modern world."

Times certainly have changed: we can no longer claim that our current
prohibition is unprecedented.

[If you think that the title of this post threatens more later on Darrow
and Prohibition, uh, well, that might be the case.]

Labels: alcohol, Darrow, Mill, obesity, Prohibition

 
Overlawyered on Vice
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 12:38 PM

Some interesting vice-related posts at Overlawyered recently.....

(1) A theater program student, a Mormon, is suing the University of Utah for being forced to use profanity in an in-class performance.

(2) A lawsuit has been filed against the world's two largest beer manufacturing companies, on the grounds that their advertisements target underage customers.

(3) Quoting the Overlawyered post, "In Ireland, an official health board has objected to the opening of a McDonald's restaurant in the County Clare town of Ennis, saying its products might make children fat."

Labels: alcohol, litigation, marketing, obesity, obscenity

 
Holiday
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 6:45 PM

Today is one of those special days when the usual rules
concerning vice are suspended. So pay little heed to
this warning, borrowed from deadlysins.com:

In the words of nineteenth-century Russian Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov:

Wise temperance of the stomach is a door to all the virtues. Restrain the stomach, and you will enter Paradise. But if you please and pamper your stomach, you will hurl yourself over the precipice of bodily impurity, into the fire of wrath and fury, you will coarsen and darken your mind, and in this way you will ruin your powers of attention and self-control, your sobriety and vigilance.


(Back to Vice Squad.) No mention from Ignatius as to
whether a tax on fatty foods would be a good idea.
Happy holiday!

Labels: obesity, tax

 
Life is Elsewhere IV
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 9:01 PM

My pleasant week of guest blogging at Crescat Sententia has come to an end,
so tomorrow I hope to resume what passes for normal blogging behavior
here at Vice Squad. In the meantime, feel free to check out my final
Crescat "contributions," this one on prosecuting pornographers and
this one on obesity policy.

Labels: Crescat, obesity, pornography, solipsism

 
Obesity Policy
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 8:43 PM

Today's New York Times Magazine leads with an article blaming the obesity epidemic on a shift in US agricultural policy in the early 1970s to one that encourages overproduction (as opposed to the New Deal policy that fought overproduction.) Terms like "overproduction" and "underproduction" are employed in a rather blithe manner throughout the article, and there are many assertions that at least this economist finds doubtful ("The rules of classical economics just don't seem to operate very well on the farm"). Nevertheless, gluttony is a growth vice right now, and there is a good deal of discussion about policy initiatives aimed at reducing obesity.

One problem with the Times Magazine article is that obesity has been increasing for a century or more, not only since the 1970s. Second, perhaps the major influence on American obesity has not been cheaper food, but more sedentary lifestyles. According to this NBER working paper by Darius Lakdawalla and Tomas Philipson, about 40 percent of increased obesity (since the mid-1970s) can be traced to technological innovations in agriculture, with 60 percent associated with lifestyle changes. In another NBER working paper, Philipson and Richard A. Posner have argued that behavioral feedbacks might render increases in obesity to be self-limiting. And by and large, the tremendous increase in agricultural productivity in the past 50 years has been extremely beneficial to people worldwide.

Cheaper food for the masses, however, no doubt does play a role in increased obesity. The Times article starts off with another vice example, that of cheap whiskey in the early 1800s in the US. Per capita consumption of alcohol surged, peaking in approximately 1830, at levels some three times higher than today. The gin epidemic in Britain in the early 18th Century is another instance where increased availability (via lower prices) of alcohol led to significant problems.

More generally, heightened availability of a drug (distilled alcohol) or other vice-related commodity, in a community that has not yet "socialized" the vice, has often brought with it severe costs. Cheap, well-marketed and palate pleasing calories undoubtedly have
contributed to increased obesity. As with drugs, however, we need to inquire about the "rationality" of decisions to consume extra calories. For public policy, I maintain once again, the goal should be to offer some assistance to those who have significant self-control problems, without imposing significant costs on those whose eating and exercise decisions are "fully rational." Banning fatty foods does not meet this test, though marketing controls or even some targeted taxes might.

Labels: alcohol, obesity