Obesity and the Economy—From Crisis to Opportunity?

Another recent JAMA editorial Harvard docs makes sense. Ludwig and Pollack outline the origins of the obesity epidemic. They include government subsidies for megafarms that produce high-calorie, low nutrition foods, fast food meals, poor incentives and facilities to promote exercise, and decreasing quality family time. Increased obesity has lead to higher incidences of stroke, heart attacks, cancer, arthritis and other medical problems. The authors push hard to correct these problems now. They contend that by doing so, we will have a highly favorable impact on the economic crisis as well improved health. I could not agree more.

See Journal of American Medical Association (click here) for the article- February 4, 2009 issue, p.533-535 (click here)