--><font color=#0000FF>Habs nur ĂĽberflogen, hoffentlich nicht falsch verstanden....
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<h3><span id="lblStoryTitle"><font size="1">http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?control=1573</font></span></h3>
<h3><span><font size="5">Are We Really Force Fed?</font></span></h3>
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<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="4">by P. Gardner Goldsmith</font>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">[Posted July 30, 2004]</font>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2"><img alt src="http://www.mises.org/images3/fat.gif" align="right" border="0" width="199" height="250">We
are advised that America is experiencing an"Obesity Epidemic", as
if it is some sort of contagious disease. Government"officials"
tell us that Americans are becoming obese at an alarming rate; they appear on
network news programs warning of the health consequences of being overweight.
Politicians talk about taxing fattening foods to stop us from harming
ourselves. Meanwhile, morning news programs and pop-culture magazines
promulgate the claims, and back them with anecdotes, personal stories, and
offers for weight loss products that can change one's life.</font>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">Perhaps nowhere was this more in
evidence than on ABC in June. For an entire week, ABC's"World News
Tonight", and"Nightline" devoted as much attention as possible
to the terrible trend towards morbid obesity in</font> <ST1:COUNTRY-REGION>
<ST1:PLACE>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">America</font></ST1:PLACE>
</ST1:COUNTRY-REGION>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">. Culminating over a year of
government warnings that began in January of 2003<a id="_ednref1" title href="http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?control=1573#_edn1" name="_ednref1"></a>,
the floridly titled,"Critical Condition: America's Obesity Crisis"
criticized fast food restaurants, advertisers, private insurance companies,
employers and, of course, free will.</font>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">At the same time, the features
sang the praises of such ideas as taxing fattening foods, and using government
programs to combat this pressing emergency.</font>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">The</font> <ST1:CITY>
<ST1:PLACE>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">high point</font></ST1:PLACE>
</ST1:CITY>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">came on June 2, when correspondent
Michelle Martin appeared on"Nightline" to sum up the entire ABC
perspective.</font>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">Introduced by the urbane and
restrained man of journalistic ethics, Ted Koppel, the program began with a
derogatory cut on talk radio, where, Mr. Koppel said, he enjoyed"listening
to the verbal agility of the host and the absolute certainty with which he
plunges into areas about which he clearly knows nothing."</font>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">This implied that Mr. Koppel knew
something the talk host did not, which is clearly what we ought to assume,
since Mr. Koppel is, after all, Mr. Koppel.</font>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">He went on:</font>
<blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">"Anyway, I gather that my
friend, the radio host, was put out by the notion that obesity might be the
responsibility of anyone other than the obese person… This was one of
those classic rants about freedom and responsibility. We are all free,
in other words, to eat whatever we want. And, if we become grossly
overweight, it is our own responsibility and nobody else's… Bluntly
stated, if you're fat, it's your own damn fault. There is some truth
to that. But if, for example, you are poor, live in the inner city,
and have no transportation of your own, you are significantly more likely to
be obese, than if you are well-off, drive your own car and live in the
suburbs. And while education does make a difference, it's not the key factor.
Take a look at what 'Nightline' producer Marie Nelson and correspondent
Michel Martin found."</font>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">The core of the ABC argument was
thus stylishly presented, or, to be more precise, it was deftly implied.
According to Ted Koppel, Marie Nelson, Michel Martin and"Nightline",
true"thinking people" know that obesity is not one's own fault,
it's the fault of society. It's almost as if we are being told,"watch
the show, and learn!"</font>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">Well, let's study the major
portions of the presentation…</font>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">"The Centers for Disease
Control estimates that one out of four adults with incomes below the poverty
level is obese," reports Martin in the"Nightline" piece.
"The correlation is especially true for women. Those with incomes
below the poverty level are more than twice as likely to be obese as women
with the highest incomes."</font>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">Her opening thesis is stated more
generally and more overtly by one of her interview subjects, Dr. Adam
Drunowski, of the</font> <ST1:PLACE>
<ST1:PLACETYPE>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">University</font></ST1:PLACETYPE>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">of</font> <ST1:PLACENAME>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">Washington</font></ST1:PLACENAME>
</ST1:PLACE>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">. An outspoken proponent of economic
determinism for obesity, Drunowski claims quite defiantly,"Well, some
people say that obesity is a result of a low metabolism. I say it is really
the result of low wages."</font>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">Which means a lot when you think
about it… When you think about it the way ABC and Dr. Drunowski would prefer.</font>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">In their view, obesity is an
indictment of capitalism, the result of an out of control system which caters
to the"haves" and neglects the"have-nots". According to
Martin, Drunowski, and others who support the belief that higher rates of
obesity in the inner cities are not just correlated to, but caused by poverty,
the free market system which has brought the</font> <ST1:COUNTRY-REGION>
<ST1:PLACE>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">United States</font></ST1:PLACE>
</ST1:COUNTRY-REGION>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">such plenty is rigged against the
poor. While it provides unlimited nutritional choices to those who live in the
suburbs, drive cars, and can make it to large supermarkets, it offers only
junk and fast food to those who need nutritious meals the most, and who can't
get outside the city.</font>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">To illustrate her point, Martin
joins a</font> <ST1:CITY>
<ST1:PLACE>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">Detroit</font></ST1:PLACE>
</ST1:CITY>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">resident named George Bogen, a man
who weighs over 485 pounds, and who has taken steps to lose weight. One such
step is to walk home from work. Unfortunately, according to Martin, his poor
environment is bereft of affordable"good" food, and is"a
gauntlet of fast-food restaurants and convenience stores."</font>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">Thus, the noble Bogen is left
"on his own" to try to get past the McDonalds and chain stores that
call like Sirens to him on his odyssey. This, clearly, is a state of affairs
which not only indicts capitalism, the system that put these trashy food
places in his way, but also those who would try to keep government small, and
not give him help trying to combat the psychic torture of having to walk past
such enticing sites. Letting a local doctor speak for her, Martin implies that
Bogen is at a disadvantage because government"insurers" will not
reimburse for obesity-related counseling.</font>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">And so, with a few more flourishes
about people"dying from obesity", and attacks on the lack of
availability of"healthy food" at corner stores, Martin ends her
piece by calling on Dr. Kimberly Dawn-Wisdom, Michigan Surgeon General.
According to Dawn-Wisdom, one way to help alleviate the problem would be to:</font>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">"Provide affordable fruits
and vegetables... And help individuals understand and empower them to
know how to cook these vegetables, how to prepare them, how to serve them
regularly."</font>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">And there you have it. What
the ignorant radio host who believed in free will didn't understand was that
capitalism has set up so many roadblocks to good nutrition in the inner cities
that people simply cannot get good food, and are forced to become obese.
Additionally, this daft talk host had better wake up to the fact that we need
taxpayer funded fruit and vegetable programs, and obesity counseling to
rectify the problem that capitalism has caused! Yes, the"Nightline"
crew knows more than the talk host. And now we know as well.</font>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">There are, unfortunately, a few
holes in this line of reasoning. Besides the fact that the government
classification of"obese" could apply to people such as Russell
Crowe and George Clooney, the very scientific claims about obesity being
tremendously life-threatening are also in dispute. According to The
Guardian, a 1996 project at</font> <ST1:PLACE>
<ST1:PLACENAME>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">Cornell</font></ST1:PLACENAME>
<ST1:PLACETYPE>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">University</font></ST1:PLACETYPE>
</ST1:PLACE>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">gathered data from dozens of previous
Body Mass Index (BMI) studies"involving a total of more than 600,000
subjects with up to a 30-year follow-up."</font>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">According to the macro study:
"Among non-smoking white men, the lowest mortality rate was found among
those with a BMI between 23 and 29, which means that a large majority of the
men who lived longest were 'overweight' according to government guidelines."
When looking at non-smoking white women,"The conclusions were even more
striking. The BMI range correlating with the lowest mortality rate was
extremely broad, from around 18 to 32, meaning a woman of average height could
weigh anywhere within an 80-pound range without seeing any statistically
significant change in her risk of premature death."<a id="_ednref2" title href="http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?control=1573#_edn2" name="_ednref2">[ii]</a></font>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">Other statistics would seem to
buttress these conclusions. While the"obesity" rate as
characterized by government spokesmen has been increasing dramatically, the
average life expectancy has done nothing but increase as well. In May of 2004,
the Centers for Disease Control reported that life expectancy had risen from
75.2 years in 1990, to 77.4 years in 2002. All of this while people in the
inner city were running the gauntlet of fast food and corner stores, and the
federal government looked the other way when it came to providing obesity
counseling for the poor.</font>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">And what of the claims made by
Martin and her interview subjects that our free market system has hampered
poor people in their search to buy good food?</font>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">This is a matter of economics.
Anyone who runs a retail business or has worked at one, or even thought about
how one operates, knows that utilization of shelf space is determined not by
the heady notions of marketers and faceless capitalists who control the lives
of helpless consumers, but by the store owners, based on what they correctly
recognize as consumer demand in their stores.</font>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">The space provided for apples,
oranges, bananas and tomatoes in a corner store is not tiny because the owner
is cruelly keeping fruit and vegetables to a minimum in his establishment. It
is tiny because he does not sell enough of those products to justify using up
more productive shelf space. In other words, people like George Bogen have
shown time and again that they prefer junk food and fast food over the
"good" food Martin and her coterie of"experts" want them
to eat.</font>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">One need not get first-hand
evidence to confirm this fact. It is simply a matter of supply and demand. But
if one did want to back it up, he need only do what I did: walk into a local
chain store. In my case, it was the Seven-Eleven located on my way to work, a
place where I frequently grab an apple and chocolate milk to go with a
sandwich for lunch.</font>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">When asked if he would stock more
fruit and vegetables if there were more demand for it over, say, Fritos and
soda, the manager said,"Of course!"</font>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">When told about the argument
offered by Michel Martin and the proponents of government intervention in diet,
he laughed very loudly, leaning back from the counter.</font>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">"That's crazy! They don't
know who is in charge here!"</font>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">No, they don't, and not many
people involved in trying to regulate the choices of consumers really do. But
that doesn't stop them from trying. The reason they continue in their Quixotic
struggle is that they believe, in large or small degree, in the Marxist myth
that the owners of the means of production make people buy things. With
their Svengali-like powers, these capitalists can mesmerize people, turning
them into consuming automatons, exploiting them, and pointing them towards
dietary choices like chips and cookies and Big Macs when, under the control of
the government, the choices offered would be highly nutritious fruits and
fibers.</font>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">Of course, it isn't the
business owner who is in charge of the transaction, it is the consumer. Unless
the consumer is willing to part with his cash, he will not spend it. Unless
the consumer sees what he desires, the business owner will not be able to stay
in business. As it turns out, the owner of the means of production is always
at the mercy of consumer taste, and the proportion of convenience store shelf
space devoted to"good" food is determined by this taste as well.</font>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">Based on Michel Martin's report,
George Bogen had two sisters. One of them had private insurance and got
gastric by-pass surgery when she weighed 350 pounds. The other passed away.
His surviving sister told Martin,"If they could see a picture of my
sister laying in a casket, and know that on her death certificate it says
'immediate cause of death, obesity,' then maybe that will wake up the
government."</font>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">It would be preferable to let the
government rest. It has been far too busy tinkering with our private lives as
it is. The last thing store owners like my neighbor, I, and the other
consumers who frequent his establishment need is a government superceding our
own preferences regarding what we eat to stay alive.</font>
<br clear="all">
<hr align="left" width="33%" SIZE="1">
<font face="Verdana" size="2">Gard Goldsmith lives in New Hampshire. <font face="Verdana" color="#3333cc" size="2">elggrande@msn.com</font>.
See his <font face="Verdana" color="#333399" size="2">archive</font> and
comment on this article on the <font face="Verdana" color="#333399" size="2">blog</font>.</font>
<div class="MsoBodyText" id="edn1">
<a id="_edn1" title href="http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?control=1573#_ednref1" name="_edn1"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">[i]</font></span></a><font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">
US Surgeon General Richard Carmona announced in January of 2003 that obesity
was a public health risk akin to a weapon of mass destruction.</font>
<div class="MsoBodyText" id="edn2">
<a id="_edn2" title href="http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?control=1573#_ednref2" name="_edn2"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">[ii]</font></span></a><font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">The
Guardian,</font> <ST1:DATE Year="2004"
Day="24" Month="4">
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">April 24, 2004</font></ST1:DATE>
<font face="Verdana, Helvetica" size="2">. Reprinted in The Guardian
Unlimited online.</font>
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