Obesity May Be Regulated Like Smoking

Many in the health world are calling for the American obesity epidemic to be treated like smoking currently is here in the US.  What this may mean is that in the recent past, we’ve seen cigarettes extremely regulated in the way they can be marketed and not marketed, and even to what age groups they could be geared toward, including where they can even spread their advertising message. 

Junk foods are currently marketed to kids, big time, and we are already seeing better foods being marketed to the nation’s youngsters, such as smaller 100 calories snack packs, and even healthier options in kid’s meals at our landmark fast food joints such as McDonalds and Wendy’s, in an effort to at least give the nation’s kids a good start in life and get them off on the right foot when it comes to their future weight and weight maintenance, not to mention their future tastes for fats and sugars, the nemesis to the thin, trim you that everyone tries to beat when they’re adults.

What the new guidelines may include in an effort to nip obesity in the bud, is to put guidelines forth for public schools in how they feed the kids, making them feed them meals that meet a certain nutritional criteria instead of some of the junk today that is high in fat and sugar and sets the stage for obesity and diabetes, a growing problem for our nation’s youths today.

They say the problem is that in industrialized nations such as ours, we have food companies coming out with highly processed and refined foods that, sure they taste good, but at the expense of the basic fulfilling nutrition.  By eating them, you basically get  more hungry and get more cravings for bad foods, so it becomes a self perpetuating situation that can only be rectified by eating wholesome, real foods that are minimally processed and have minimum preservatives and additives. 

We need to get back to basics in the way we eat.  I think when that happens, most of the battle against obesity may be taken care of.  Of course portion control always matters as well, but the quality of the foods we eat would be a huge step in the right direction.