Yesterday an Associated Press article asked this question, on the news that between 1999 and 2004 women’s obesity rates stopped increasing, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). William Dietz, director of the CDC’s division of nutrition and physical activity, told The Washington Post: “Women historically have been the early adopters of positive health behaviors … This plateau may reflect an increased effort by women to control their weight.”
While the new report noted that childhood obesity rates did increase over the periods surveyed, the Post quotes Dietz as saying: “Children and adolescents tend to be influenced by their mothers … So perhaps we may see something similar start to happen in those groups.”
What’s remarkable about the leveling-off is that it all happened in the so-called “toxic food environment,” without many of the “solutions” that the food police have tried to force on us — no fat taxes, almost no soda bans, and not a single successful obesity lawsuit. Will the nation’s obesity crusaders take this news and change their ways? Fat chance.
