At the moment I don’t sense major commitment on the part of either the public or government to end the obesity epidemic. Given society’s unwillingness to address issues that threaten the survival of the human species – namely climate change and water and resource scarcity – it’s unrealistic to expect a major turn-around on government policies that threaten to cripple 1/3 to 1/2 of the US population with chronic, disabling health conditions.

However if the public miraculously decided to tackle the obesity epidemic, the first step would be to own obesity as a social/political condition, rather than blaming individual fat people for social and biologic factors that are largely beyond their control. The second step would be acknowledging that reducing our high rates of obesity is virtually impossible unless citizens of western democracies retake control of their elections, legislative bodies, and public airways, as well as banning corporate monopoly control over publishing and the Internet. Although statistically obesity spreads among populations just like a contagious disease (see http://www.desdemonadespair.net/search/label/Graph%20of%20the%20Day?updated-max=2010-11-08T09%3A58%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=20), it also has the distinction of stemming from causes that directly relate to total corporate dominance over both government and public information.

At present the best option at present for ending corporate dominance is via a national grassroots movement called Move to Amend. Move to Amend seeks to end the ability of corporations to claim Bill of Rights protections for something called “corporate personhood.” The movement, which started in rural Pennsylvania, has successfully passed local laws across the US forcing corporations seeking to respect community interests. As the name of the movement suggests, the ultimate goal is to amend the US Constitution to reverse one hundred years of Supreme Court decisions that have granted corporations the same “rights” as individuals. This was clearly never intended by the Constitutional framers, many of whom wrote extensively about the risk of powerful corporations corrupting government.

Go to www.movetoamend.org and click on the “Move to Amend” tab in the lower left hand corner. Then click on the “Sign the Motion” tab on the right to add your signature to the 95,000 on the petition to amend the Constitution.

Short and Medium Term Solutions

Ending corporate rule is obviously a long term solution. Nevertheless, as with many social problems, there are also more immediate short terms steps than can be taken. There are already hundreds of groups and organizations all over the country working to address the ideological and economic factors that contribute to excessive weight gain:

• Abolishing the “food ghettos” via the urban garden movement

What is happening in Detroit is truly inspirational. Housing foreclosures and vacancies have turned many blocks of downtown Detroit into empty, abandoned land – which local residents are converting into urban gardens to produce fresh fruits and vegetables. (see http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2521061/detroits_urban_gardens_a_food_revolution.html?cat=62). There are similar grassroots projects in Milwaukee (see ) and Los Angeles (see http://www.good.is/post/five-innovative-urban-gardening-programs-in-los-angeles/) If there isn’t one in your city, you need to start one.

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• Eliminating federal agricultural subsidies

Last week Congress took the first momentous step of ending federal subsidies for school junk food lunches by passing the Child Nutrition Bill, which had been stalled for two years. The next step is to eliminate federal subsidies on corn, soy, and wheat. These were initially enacted during the Depression to keep small family farmers from losing their farms when there was an oversupply of these commodities causing a steep drop in the price they were paid for them. Now that these subsidies mainly go to corporate farm giants like Monsanto, Cargil and Archer Daniel Midlands, they actually hurt small farmers more than they help them. There is currently a proposal on the budget cutting table to eliminate the $14 billion in annual food subsidies, and citizens need to organize and get behind this proposal (see http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html)

• Banning junk food ads on TV

Viewers have already pressured the federal government to ban cigarette ads on TV, as well as pressuring the alcohol industry to self-regulate by not showing liquor ads prior to 10 p.m.

• Guaranteeing access to preventive care (and nutritional counseling) by expanding Medicare to cover all Americans

The reality is that ObamaCare, Obama’s corporate welfare plan for insurance companies, simply cannot be funded in a recession. It will have to undergo major amendment before it’s fully implemented in 2014. The only affordable way to finance health care for all Americans is to eliminate insurance company profit, advertising and overhead from the health care equation by expanding Medicare, an highly popular, efficient, and economical program, to cover people under 65. (see http://www.healthcare-now.org/ for how you can help)

• Reducing income inequality (via fairer taxation) – the root cause of insulin resistance

Warren Buffett (the world’s second richest man) is the most prominent American arguing for an urgent reduction in income inequality (see http://www.slate.com/id/2266025. However other business analysts and economists are coming around to the view that economic recovery will never occur in the US without a “consumer recovery.” Which will be impossible until workers have adequate take home pay to enable them to purchase the goods they produce.

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