Why fattening foods are being positioned as the next targets for public-health officials

John Doyle is director of communications for The Guest Choice Network in Washington, D.C.

Without anyone having to eat even a single slice of cheesecake, the government recently manufactured 30 million more overweight American adults. In June the National Institutes of Health abruptly redefined its Body Mass Index, bringing the number of overweight adults to about 100 million. It was simple: The NIH just changed its definition of fat. Add that to the unquestioned bromide that excessive weight kills 300,000 Americans per year, and a national weight crisis has been created -- a crisis that will help define the next front in the health wars.

While alcohol producers are strapping on bulletproof vests in anticipation of the health nannies' next attack, the real target continues chomping its Happy Meal, unaware of what's coming. Right now the laser sight is poised on the back of Ronald McDonald's neck and inching higher. Big Booze is busy readying for the coming assault, but the industry soon to be dubbed "Big Fat" is about to get plugged.

The public-health zealots have targeted high-calorie foods for their next program. The assault won't include hordes of plaintiffs' lawyers, ambitious attorneys general and global settlements yet. Fattening foods are being positioned to receive the traditional initiation of government disapproval -- the dreaded sin tax. As any self-respecting health zealot knows, the "tobacco template" works best if punitive taxes first are attached to discourage use and fund the obligatory education programs.

Big Fat may not be so easy to define as Big Booze or Big Tobacco, but it certainly has a visible and tempting flagship in the fast-food industry. Annually, the burgers, pizzas, tacos and subs industries bring in $102 billion. That number is even more eye-popping when the producers of chips, cookies, ice cream and other goodies are included. Even minimal taxing on a calorie-to-nutrient ratio effectively would penalize anyone purchasing high-calorie foods. It would quickly create millions for politicians to spend. Some members of Congress definitely will get the munchies for a fat tax when they imagine the potential revenue.

Having watched the attack on the tobacco industry, most people assumed alcohol, its naughty reputation already established by the Carrie Nations of the world, would be next to feel the ax. It is beginning to look a bit like France's assumption that Germany would make straight for the Maginot Line once the goose-stepping began.

Alcohol already is taxed heavily, wears the scarlet letter of warning labels and is ready for a fight. To further "get" alcohol would require making the leap to all-out litigation, a la the debated tobacco settlement. That's not to say it won't happen. It probably will, just not today.

Meanwhile, fattening food is shaping up to be the Belgium of the choice war -- an undefended, unaware route to victory. On the fat front the last six months have been a whirl of activity to position fattening foods as killers. The zealots' goals were laid out in a March 18 article in The Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Titled "Lessons from the Tobacco Wars Edify Nutrition War Tactics," the article described health advocates' hopes "to bypass the excruciatingly arduous and long path that anti-tobacco advocates had to travel before warnings about the hazards of smoking took hold." In other words, Blitzkrieg! The crusaders want anti-fat legislation to curb Americans' dietary habits. And they want it now.

The American Heart Association threw the fat in the fire just before the NIH created more fatties. They officially listed obesity as a major cause of heart disease, calling it a "dangerous epidemic." As we all know, epidemics require quick-and-decisive action. Fat tax, anyone?

The "Twinkie Tax" idea was first posited by Kelly Brownell of Yale University. His plan to create a fatto-nutrient tax on food got its first dance across the national stage in January when U.S. News & World Report listed it among its 16 "Smart Ideas to Fix the World." Other stories in national publications prove the idea quickly has gone mainstream.

In the fat epidemic, as in any current publichealth crisis, children are the victims du jour. The American Journal of Cardiology estimates the number of obese children and teen-agers has doubled since the 1960s, to 20 million. The blame for our fat kids is being laid squarely at the red-shod feet of you know who. Increasingly, the rhetoric of the fat crusaders implicates high-calorie food producers for targeting children.

"Diet and lack of exercise kill as many people as tobacco. And Ronald McDonald is certainly America's pied piper, encouraging kids to eat a diet loaded with calories and fat," said Michael Jacobson, president of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, earlier this year. Brownell added to that child-baiting image, saying, "To me, there is no difference between Ronald McDonald and Joe Camel."

San Francisco Business Times columnist Janet Colwell has envisioned a scenario where "McDonald's may one day find itself explaining its marketing strategy to the courts and increasingly hostile public." "Mickey D's" might live to see the day when its Beanie Baby promotion is exhibit A.

When you consider the array of weapons aligned against the high-calorie food industry, it seems the anti-choice zealtos are likely to make their move soon. If they are successful, Big Fat will be just another notch in the ever-expanding gun belt of the nanny culture. And yet another personal choice will be hauled before their firing squad.

COPYRIGHT 1998 Lebhar-Friedman, Inc.
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