By Sara Wright
It seems that obesity has enjoyed considerable publicity for quite some time now, well established as an issue of concern and fully understood by the public and the media. However, a closer look tells a different story. Media coverage and public discussion of obesity remain remarkably one-dimensional, and fail to capture the complexity and severity of the issue. We all know that diets – particularly Western diets – increasingly feature too many calories and low nutritional quality. We further know that people are moving toward more sedentary lifestyles, reducing the calories they burn in their daily activities. The combination certainly contributes to the growing obesity trend in Western and westernizing countries. Accusatory fingers are pointed at fast food companies, and many see opportunity in companies that make vitamins or manage gyms. However, this tends to be where the discussion ends. Scientific literature, however, reveals a much more nuanced and complex story that affects a far broader cross-section of industries.
It’s important to understand just how serious the obesity problem is. In 2007, the world reached a shocking landmark. Not only are there more obese people in the world than hungry people, but there are now more obese people in developing countries than hungry people. Globally, there is also a continuing increase in the rate of overweight, and a sustained decrease in the rate of underweight. Meanwhile, scientists are predicting that the generation of children being born today will be the first not to outlive its parents since the beginning of record-keeping on the subject, down almost entirely to the multiple effects of obesity such as diabetes, heart disease and more. Clearly, we have a long way to go in fully understanding this issue.
There are many aspects of modern life beyond diet and exercise that are being carefully examined in scientific literature for their possible roles in contributing to the obesity epidemic. Environmental exposure to widely used chemicals is an area that has a growing body of evidence against it. For instance, the recently stigmatized bisphenol A – present in many plastics including baby bottles – appears to be implicated, as do other endocrine-disrupting compounds that have hormone-like properties, such the phthalates that make plastics pliable. Such compounds are present not only in common packaging and other plastic-based products, but also in multiple pharmaceutical and personal care products. As this research matures, the impacts will range far beyond the food and beverage sector, to include consumer staples and discretionary items, health care, and more.
A firmer understanding of the global energy balance also calls into question certain claims that the public has a tendency to accept without question. Some of the largest companies in the world make their business cases on the basis of an impending food crisis, warning us that the world will be at pains to feed its ever growing population. Yet, even as the average adult needs somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 calories a day, the US currently produces more than 3,900 calories per person per day, and that figure is growing both there and in the rest of the world. On a pure assessment of energy balance today, the fact that anyone at all goes hungry in the world is a problem of distribution, not supply.
Obesity is about far more than fast food and television. The multiple vectors of its causes and effects are only beginning to emerge in the scientific literature, and have not featured prominently in other communities to any meaningful degree. The range of companies that are or will be affected by this issue is far broader than the current debate suggests.
