Obesity in the Avenues

In today's Salt Lake Tribune:
Heaviest Utahns live in Rose Park; leanest in Aves

Age and women's education were the only factors statistically linked to areas' obesity rates. Those two factors accounted for about half of the difference between the most and least obese areas, Larsen said.
"It's very interesting because you would think income would have something to do with it," she said. "My intuitive sense is that a higher proportion of college-educated women means they're more likely to be physically active and perhaps take care of their spouse differently, but we really aren't sure why that was a factor."

Cognitive dissonance and one effort to fight it

Past a certain point (say, beyond the genetic predisposition idea), I am not willing to concede that obesity is out of the control of the individual. Yes its causes are complex and interrelated, yes you can get addicted to sugar/fat/comfort foods. But for God's sake take some ownership for your own health. Morford, as usual, puts it best:

know, it's not a simple problem. I know obesity is a terribly complicated issue, crosses myriad sociocultural lines, is more than merely too much unhealthy food coupled with too much laziness coupled with too much I'm-a-victim thinking coupled with lack of self-control coupled with lack of exercise coupled with lack of decent health education coupled with lousy upbringing coupled with sinister garbage-food corporate marketing coupled with increasingly sedentary TV-addicted lifestyles coupled with pain-avoidance mechanisms coupled with believing it's all up to the Big Pharmcos to merely invent a magic bullet to cure it all. Oh wait, check that, it's not more than that at all. That's exactly what it is.

That is exactly what it is. And most of those factors can be either completely controlled by the individual or strongly mitigated.

On a more promising front: The Center for Science in the Public Interest is going after the big soda manufacturers in order to get them to stop suckering schools into exclusive vending contracts that 1) end up not generating that much revenue for the individual school and 2) amount to unfair and deceptive marketing practices. I say: go get 'em.

Obesity, health insurance, and the Corporation

(Regarding a post from last July)

Blue Cross of California said...
Krugman has a great discussion on obesity and health care. The discussion is very interesting as obesity can lead to higher cost in health insurance.

So true. And as a direct result, corporations (e.g. Wal-Mart and its now-famous memo) are looking for ways to reduce their costs by screening for healthier employees when hiring. Is this an unethical practice - that is, employment discrimination against obese people?

Does it provide incentives for people to stay/become healthier?

Would it be analogous to screen for smokers?