Can't Help Ourselves

The above ad was on the web page (http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/nutrition/225985-iom-feds-should-prepare-to-intervene-on-childhood-nutrition-standards) which said:


Federal agencies should step in if industries that promote high-calorie foods to children do not implement common nutrition standards within two years, the influential Institute of Medicine (IOM) said Tuesday. 
The recommendation came as part of a 478-page IOM report on the U.S. obesity epidemic that outlined broad policy changes the panel says are necessary to stave off a healthcare crisis.
The changes are aimed at a complete overhaul of the United States's "obesogenic" environment, the panel wrote.
"People have heard the advice to eat less and move more for years, and during that time a large number of Americans have become obese," panelist Shiriki Kumanyika of the University of Pennsylvania said.
"That advice will never be out of date. But when you see the increase in obesity you ask, what changed? And the answer is, the environment.
"The average person cannot maintain a healthy weight in this obesity-promoting environment," she said.
Strategies like a possible soda tax and new zoning laws to encourage walking and biking are designed to "reinforce one another's impact to speed our progress," said panel Chairman Dan Glickman, a former secretary of Agriculture.


(OBESOGENIC A strange-looking word, it comes from obese plus the ending -genic, something tending to generate or create. It refers to conditions that lead people to become excessively fat — a worrying trend in developed countries, especially among young people, who are eating too much of the wrong things and not taking enough exercise. The problem is variously put down to social causes (too many sedentary pursuits available; fear that the outdoors in cities is dangerous, leading to less cycling, walking and running about) or to the results of our consumer lifestyle (eating pre-prepared meals that contain excessive sugar and fats). The term seems to have appeared in the last decade (the first example I can find is from a British newspaper in 1996) and is not as yet mainstream, though it is increasingly turning up in newspapers and medical journals. Its opposite is not often called for, but if you need it, it’s leptogenic, leading to weight loss, from Greek leptos, thin, fine or delicate.)(http://www.worldwidewords.org/turnsofphrase/tp-obe1.htm)


I actually believe that people can maintain a healthy weight in this environment.  But many people believe that only government can save us from ourselves!

Taxes on pop is another "great" way to "help" us, my personal pop consumption is about 12 ozs. a week on pizza day (another no-no, oh please help us Gov!).  Though I do believe in making it safer to walk and bike.

I know that I am old-fashioned in believing that people can do what is right without the government's help.