I grew up on a strange blend of Happy Meals and granola, white bread and Flintstones’ vitamins. My physical activity revolved around a hula hoop and relatively infrequent Jane Fonda workout sessions alongside my mother. The monkey bars frightened me, and I still can’t quite turn corners on a bicycle.
To this day, I have retained similar attitudes towards diet and exercise; moving around is undesirable, unless incredibly entertaining (and few things match up to Jane’s spandex), and every “bad” food must be counteracted by a “good” food, or, admittedly, just less food altogether. Like most Americans, I think of my health in terms of numbers—how many calories go in, how many burn up and what the scale says the next day.
Michael Pollan insists in this week’s New York Times Magazine cover story that because food isn’t simple, we cannot think about it as simply as I always have. It isn’t an equation, a matter of counting up to 1800 calories and down to 150 lbs. I do not mean to say that these numbers are unimportant, but that many myths and factors affect them. It seems telling, after all, that with the onslaught of processed foods beginning three decades ago, people have only gotten fatter while eating foods that supposedly make them healthier. We cannot boil food—or health—down to math.
The fact that America is overwhelmingly overweight is not news at this point. What is news is that, according to a 2005 study from the New England Journal of Medicine, obesity may bring two centuries of steadily lengthening life expectancies to an end. No American demographic is safe and, because children are especially at risk, the problem is unlikely to end soon.
A little education can go a long way here. Images of impossibly thin women in the media are not the only damaging factors; so are numbers without explanation. I, for instance, am not obese, or even overweight. According to my handy Body Mass Index Index (BMI) calculator, I am within a “healthy” weight range for my height. As a 5’5 woman, I would have to weigh over 180 lbs. to be considered obese. The same study reports that about two-thirds of American adults are obese, so I assume that, because I don’t consider myself the picture of health, I could someday be included in this number.
Unfortunately, a combination of laziness and ignorance keeps me from taking steps to complicate my own relationship to food. The bananas I steal from Leo’s are often left forgotten in my backpack as I down a sugar-packed cereal bar. I have a vague image of a now long-outdated food pyramid and the knowledge that some food will probably reduce my chances of developing breast cancer, which runs in my family. A little more information about what foods will specifically target my own health risks may prove inspiring enough to keep obesity at bay.
Another recent New York Times article tells of a widespread trend among schools beginning to send home BMI numbers along with report cards. These reports do not necessarily come with information on why these matter, but they instill guilt and confusion in parents and children who do not know what to do when given only numbers. Schools send mixed messages as well, seemingly blaming parents with these reports while continuing to serve foods like funnel cake in the cafeteria.
Since even scientists are continually questioning the effects of certain foods in certain combinations accompanying certain lifestyles, we all must be aware of the complexity of the issue. Peer pressure, physical education, cafeteria food, family history and a wide range of other factors have created an astounding problem, and we must look at each of these individually to develop solutions beyond the numbers.
America has little hope of overhauling an entire system of overeating and under-exercising, but if parents and children understand from the outset that obesity is a deadly legacy and, more importantly, one that takes education and many tools to end, they might be willing to fight a little harder to live a little longer.
