This is Why You’re Fat. And Need Health Care.
Here’s a really interesting op-ed from Michael Pollan, from this past Sunday’s NY Times. I’ve always known that America’s eating habits have dire consequences on America’s health, but had never quite put the pieces together as he does in this article, basically advocating pitting the food lobby against the health care lobby and seeing who wins (and hoping health care does).
The logic goes like this: America is fatter than other countries, which means America is also unhealthier than other countries. Under the current health care system, it’s in the health care industry’s interest for America to be unhealthy, because that’s how they make money (prescription drugs, medical technology, etc.), and because insurers can just dump patients with chronic conditions or up their rates. BUT, if the system changes, forcing the health care industry to provide for everyone equally, then it won’t be in insurers’ interest anymore for Americans to be unhealthy. They will want healthy Americans (shocker), and that means they won’t want fat Americans, and that means that they won’t want fast food, and other forms of junk food. And that means they’ll have to take on the food industry.
I like this op-ed because it does everything that foodie politics often fails to do: it mentions really concrete statistics, it follows a course of logic based in pragmatism, rather than emotion or morality, and, most of all, it offers an innovative, practical solution. I’m all for emotions and morality, but when it comes to sustainable food and health practices, money talks. I’m happy to see the ostensible king of food politics really starting to imagine some hardball.
