Heavy issue: food industry weighs down Americans with freedom of choice - Opinion

A round the corner from my apartment in Manhattan is one of the most popular restaurants in the city. Carmine's is a New York institution, known for its large atmospheric space, Italian food and huge portion sizes. "You do know about our portion sizes," says the waiter with a wink and a nod whenever I go there for dinner. I smile and nod back, thinking about what my "doggy bag" lunches will be over the next week. And yes, I also am thinking that inevitably I will gain a bit of weight in the bargain. It's not a place that encourages restraint. "Would you like some garlic bread with that?" is a standard line.

In the past 10 years obesity has climbed by over 60 percent in America. In the past 20 years, child obesity has tripled. A full one-quarter of all children and adults are now obese. Those are frightening statistics. And in a plethora of media articles last summer, we were told why: supersized portions. "Taught as children to clean everything from our plates, we grow into adults who chow down gigantic portions that pack more than a day's worth of fat and calories in a single meal," declared the Washington Post. Citing a professor of nutrition, the Los Angeles Times reported that "supersizing is contributing to the current epidemic of obesity in this country. The more you give people, the more they'll eat." Even the Wall Street Journal weighed in, linking supersized snack foods with child obesity.

All of that media buzz comes on the tail of Eric Schlosser's surprise best seller "Fast Food Nation." He, too, blames portion sizes, specifically those in fast-food joints. "They are fighting for every customer," said Schlosser of the fast-food chains in a recent interview. "The way they have decided to fight that battle right now is by increasing the portion size, more food, more fat, more sugar."

Indeed, compared with 1950, today's supersized McDonald's meals provide nearly double the number of calories. Last year Happy Meals were up-sized to a Mighty Kids Meal for "grownup" kids. If the reaction of American consumers is anything to go by, those bigger sizes are difficult to resist. Added into the equation is the fact that, according to U.S. government statistics, almost half of all food is eaten outside of the home. Michael Jacobson, director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, known both as the nation's premier nutrition watchdog and the "food police" by critics, is so concerned about restaurant meals that he wrote a book about it. "Restaurant Confidential" lists the calories of restaurant meals in chains throughout the country. It's educational to read that a Starbucks White Chocolate Mocha has the same number of calories as a Big Mac.

The CSPI also released a report in June, "From Wallet to Waistline: The Hidden Costs of Supersizing." The report stated, "We are now being plagued with portion distortion," putting the blame fairly and squarely in the hands of the restaurant industry.

Another book, "Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health," by Marion Nestle, chairwoman of the New York University Department of Nutrition and Food Studies, also has added to the buzz. "It's astonishing to me how difficult it is for people to understand conceptually that larger portions means more calories," Nestle says.

The food industry is quick to counter those arguments. There is no such thing as good foods and bad foods, they say. There are just good choices and bad choices. And it is up to us to make good choices.

While watching the coverage of the Sept. 11 memorial events on TV, a commercial caught my eye. In the ad, aired by the industry-supported Ad Council, the camera travels down a supermarket aisle, as if on a trolley, past thousands and thousands of food products. There is no voice-over, but on screen appear these words: "Freedom -- Competition -- Choice." According to the director of the campaign, the ad is intended to "let us know that freedom brings choice, the freedom for you to choose whatever product you wish." Am I seeing that right? "Freedom" is the same as "freedom of choice"?

America's notion of freedom has a long and fascinating history. And the notion that freedom means free choice is part of that history, albeit a controversial one. When making choices -- including food choices -- it's true to say that many Americans equate freedom to choose with freedom to have whatever they want. Immigrants feel that same way: "I'm in America so I can have what I want."

But another part of the American idea of freedom is individual responsibility -- that a state is not necessary because individuals can be responsible for themselves. What follows is the irritation that many Americans have with people blaming the industry for their oversized figures and suing. That would be, thus far, two teenagers and a New York City man who had filed class-action lawsuits against fast-food chains. The teens claimed that McDonald's enticed them to consume larger portions through the use of "value meal" advertisements without disclosing the health effects of eating those meals. "Rubbish," said the industry in response. "We provide information. They are free to choose." Both suits since have been dismissed.

The other day while at the supermarket, I imagined myself rolling through the aisles like the camera in the aforementioned TV commercial. I know I was supposed to feel that the experience of a supermarket was one of freedom, but I'm not so sure.

The ad was right in the "there are lots of choices" department. But to make the type of "good choices" that the industry says I have the freedom to make took a lot of resistance. I certainly didn't have the luxury of traveling at the steady pace of the trolley in the ad. I had to stop and make hard choices. I had to read the food labels. I needed to think whether, financially, it was worth buying a bigger and relatively cheaper size or buying a smaller one. I had to think how it would all go together into a meal.

In other words, I experienced a hell of a lot of cognitive activity in the grocery store that day -- and it wasn't pleasant.

Americans who like going out to eat don't want to have to spend so much time going through what is a fairly complex cognitive exercise in the face of so much at-table marketing. The fact is the food industry is making it harder and harder for us to make good choices.

But there's more at work behind big-portion choices in this obesity epidemic. When I saw the TV commercial during the Sept. 11 memorial programming, I realized that the industry is encouraging us to think that true freedom is freedom to choose. It's a powerful idea. It makes us feel we are fortunate to have power in our own lives. It's also a powerful idea when one is faced with a steaming hot plate of pasta. Eating it all is simply freedom -- the American way.

Corinna Hawkes, Ph.D., is a food-policy consultant in New York.

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