We Won't Cure Obesity With a Label Makeover

WomanUp welcomes writer Sascha Rothchild to our midst with the post below.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, the group that spearheaded legislation requiring packaged foods to carry nutrition disclosures, is now fighting for a label makeover.

Over the past 20 years, food manufacturers have apparently found ways to manipulate nutritional information to hide unhealthy ingredients, such as high fructose corn syrup and polydextrose, and to make false claims about added health benefits.

While it is true that phrases "low fat," "high fiber," "all natural" and "heart healthy" are often misleading (not to mention that the serving sizes are based on the appetites of Lilliputians), the labels are not what need a makeover. It is Americans.

Since 1960, obesity in America has climbed from 13 percent to 31 percent, with child obesity more than doubling in the past 20 years, proving that nutritional labels don't have any effect on actual food consumption. Some proposed reformatting changes for these labels include not using all capital letters, adding bullet points, printing important information in red and using symbols as well as words.

This is all well and good for the already health-conscious person, but none of these things will help an overweight person avoid a giant bag of potato chips.

What will help this county get out of plus-size clothes and back into standard-size airplane seats? More exercise, of course. Less fast food. More fresh fruit and greens. Taking all processed junk food and soda out of schools and teaching children that ketchup is not a viable vegetable is a start to at least stopping the cycle of obesity. Taxing alcohol and cigarettes hasn't stopped anyone from drinking and smoking, so taxing Twinkies probably won't help. But desperate times call for desperate measures, so perhaps slapping parents who allow their children to become obese with child endangerment charges will help curb our epidemic of fatness.

Insurance companies are already raising rates for the overweight, so maybe sheer budgetary concerns will force people to think about what they are eating. And the argument that eating healthy is too expensive for many Americans just doesn't hold up -- an apple and a candy bar cost the same.

The reality is sugary, carb-laden cereal, powdered chocolate donuts, soft white bread, candy-infused ice cream and bacon-cheese fries taste really good right now, regardless of the nutritional content. And America is the land of instant gratification. So, sadly, the campaign to give nutrition labels a makeover as a way to help Americans make healthier eating choices is going to be as effective as Nancy Reagan's ploy to "just say no to drugs."