No trip to Paris without a stop at Berthillon, the sherbet place in Ile Saint-Louis. While waiting in line, I cannot believe the serving sizes. Were they this small last year? One scoop for two Euros, it better be good. In the US, for the same price, I would get a huge cup, oozing with overly sweet ‘scream’. I am pleased, my modest wild strawberry sherbet is bursting with the intensity of 100% pure fruit flavor. I make sure I take the time to enjoy every tiny spoonful. Ahead of us, is a slow moving herd of American tourists, almost all suffering from various degrees of chronic overeating. Obesity in America is not news. Still, whenever I come back to France, I can’t help but noticing the contrast between Americans and the rest of the world:
I would not care, if obesity was a strictly personal matter. More and more, however, it has become a global threat, with Americans leading the offensive. Bestsellers such as Mireille Guiliano‘s “Why French women don’t get fat?“, or Michael Pollan‘s “In Defense of Food” are small blips in America’s awareness of its food problem. What to do? Should weight loss become a national initiative as in Japan?
A few weeks ago it was reported in the media that Australia was now the fattest country on earth. The data that the bar graph above is based on is from 2002 (for Australia, Austria, and Portugal), and 2003 (rest of the countries). The survey results came from Melbourne-based Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute.
http://www.forbes.com/markets/2008/06/20/australian-obesity-survey-markets-equity-cx_jc_0620markets06.html
Marguerite, this is another interesting insight…
A new term for global obesity was coined recently : globesity. It is a huge risk and I personally think that we should eat differently : less in quantities as well as various adjustments :
less meat and more vegetables, fruits and cereals.
One should privilege quality of food instead of quantity too. Your article illustrates that very well.
Finally, I think that soaring oil prices might help in making people eat less.
Don’t forget the Musee D’Orsay! (Not sure I spelled that right.)
Regarding obesity, there seems to be a three-way battle going on among:
1. Some of the imperfections and susceptibilities of human nature.
2. Our human social nature (that we discuss every once in awhile), which makes it more or less tolerable, or normal, to be fit or less fit, depending on the culture and other factors.
And . . .
3. The fact that, in our economic system, companies want to achieve profit growth and thus try (in many cases) to offer us more, more, and more.
There is a rather fierce tug-of-war among these forces. I would be very interested in your thoughts, Marguerite (or others), on why there’s a difference on this between France and the U.S. Is it that French companies are less pushy or that they somehow don’t need the profit growth that might come from encouraging “more”? Or, is it that obesity is SO unfashionable and frowned upon in France that the social factor keeps people fit? Or, is it partly genetic? Or, what else?
Great post. If you find the French secret to losing 30 or 40 pounds, please let me know!
Cheers.
> Jeff : it is the right spelling. It seems you like this museum too. I love it…
I think French people don’t have a secret to lose 15 or 20 kilograms. They stay fit, they don’t drive to much, they watch their weights out…
And here, obesity is increasing in terms of population. I am not sure that in 10 or 20 years we will have the same amount of obese…
I think genetics play also a part in it. At least, for me there is a part of genetics for staying the way I am. ( thin… )
But the Health Ministry is taking care of the situation. Hope it won’t get out of hands.
Obesity is also a social justice issue.
WHO tells us that,
“Globally, there are more than 1 billion overweight adults, at least 300 million of them obese.”
The IFPRI tells us that,
“About 800 million people are hungry, lacking sufficient access to food and far more people suffer from vitamin and mineral deficiencies that lead to serious health problems.”
The excess food of the 300 million obese people would very likely be just the right amount to make up for the shortfall of food for the 800 million hungry; if not, the 700 million overweight but not obese could give some up.
The problems are parallel. The prosperity which allows the well-off to be obese comes at the expense of the poor. I can only afford a $5 burger because I can get $10/kg coffee, and I can only get $10/kg coffee because Western companies won’t pay a fair price to coffee bean farmers in West Africa, and because they can’t get a fair price they don’t have money to spend to stimulate their local economy and help people eat.
I don’t think the price of oil will affect this much. Affluence of elites has always been built on the backs of the poor. There was no oil burned in the US slaveholding states of the 19th century, and transportation was slow. What cheap oil allows us to do is to ensure that the cheap labour which gives us cheap goods can be pleasantly distant – we don’t have to see their poverty the way a slaveholder did. But then, Mexican indentured labourers picking tomatoes and the like, that shows that it’s bearable for the US to see poverty.
Cheap oil gives us access to a large cheap labour pool which we’d otherwise have to have in our own countries. If you only have the cheap labour of your own country, you can have a few rich people and a small middle class, but having access to the larger labour pool of the world allows you a large middle class.
But essentially my affluence can only come at the expense of their poverty. The problems run in parallel, but the solutions could make these two lines meet. We need fair trade, universal labour laws or guidelines, restrictions on monopolies, and so on.
Check the plot of obesity and human powered commuting for various countries on the bottom of this post
http://tingilinde.typepad.com/starstuff/2008/04/moving-beyond-t.html
One needs to be careful and you can’t state a direct relations, but …
Targeting weight-loss would increase both health and sustainability through less eating, different eating and more exercise, although that last one could mean more car-trips to the gym. Let’s hope it would mean more bike-trips to the mall.
An other very important factor is agricultural subsidies, which are heavily tilted to the sugar-industry in the US. I think that changing this subsidies will result in a different product-mix in supermarkets, as well as more sustainable farming practices, because the current subsidies seem to favor large-scale industrial farms.
Great chart, Steve.
It is also important to remark the disproportion of poor people in the US obese people. So, yes, Kyle obesity is a social justice issue, in two ways. Between developed and developing countries, and also between the poorest and the richest in wealthy countries such as the US. In the latter case, processed foods happened to be the cheapest, most readily available, and at the same times, most caloric. Michael Pollan talks at length about the processed foods problem in his latest book. Of course processed foods are also responsible for most carbon emissions.
The other thing is that everyone wants entertainment, and for the poorest parts of society the only entertainment they can afford is food, drink and tobacco. The better-off parts can afford other entertainment.
So true Marguerite! Somehow I don’t think that the global food crisis will cause most Americans (or Canadians) to eat less.
I also enjoyed the book ‘French Women Don’t Get Fat’. Enjoyable read and makes a lot of sense. Quality not quantity.
I just finished “In Defense of Food” (started reading it after your post). It has removed all my remaining doubts about food. Non-processed, organic, and preferably local food is the way to go. And mostly plants, and not too much.
I should really try to eat more fruit though. I only eat bananas, because they’re so convenient…
I can also recommend “Spark” by John Ratey. It’s about the effects of physical exercise on the brain. I’m in chapter three now:
Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain
Kyle, you are so right about poor people looking to food as primary comfort/gratification source. You forgot sex, one of the cheapest, most readily form of entertainment. Although one that comes with its share of complications!