Jim Gogek

We know how to combat obesity. But our knowledge can’t help us. What’s required is collective, multi-faceted public health action on a federal, state and local level. And the United States has no infrastructure to accomplish that.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has laid out a straightforward way to solve obesity. Nothing in this plan is new: increased physical activity, increased fruit and vegetable consumption, decreased consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks high energy-dense food. Individuals can accomplish this. But as of yet, we have no societal mechanism to do it on a large enough scale that could make a difference. Some states are making attempts in that direction, but it’s not close to enough.

We have plenty of national centers for research into treating  diseases and disorders, but very few for prevention. The CDC — Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — makes a valiant try but is underfunded and too politically hamstrung to launch truly effective national prevention efforts. So, when it comes to obesity prevention, we’re on our own. That’s where medicine focuses — individual treatment such as obesity surgery and diets. Meanwhile, researchers look to for a cause through genetics, though how that might solve the problem on the population level isn’t clear.

The obesity vector is the American obsession with individualism. Government-sponsored, society-wide programs to change behavior are despised — even if the behavior is killing us. And so, the rugged individualist gets bigger and bigger and bigger, now weighing 350 pounds and riding one of those electric carts through the snack aisle in the grocery store.