MIM Notes 224   December 15, 2000

Obesity epidemic on the rise in Amerika -- thank you Mickey Dee's
Malnutrition still most pressing global problem

by MC206

According to a report in the October 4 Journal of the American Medical 
Association,(1) obesity among people in the united $tates age 18 and up jumped 
60% in the 1990s. It was up 6% between 1998 and 1999 alone. Approximately 19% of 
the u.$. population is obese -- defined as having a body mass index (BMI) of 30 
or greater.(2)

This increase has serious health and social implications. Obesity is associated 
with diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer, complications in 
pregnancy, and early death. An estimated 300,000 premature u.$. deaths a year 
are attributable to obesity. The National Institutes of Health estimated that 
obesity in the united $tates cost $99.2 billion in 1995 -- $51.6 in health 
expenditures and $47.6 in other, "indirect" costs.(3)

Adverse heath effects likely due in part to the increase in obesity have already 
been observed. Newly-diagnosed cases of diabetes rose 33% between 1991 and 1998. 
For people in their 30s, the increase was 70%.(4)

Of course, obesity is much more prevalent in affluent, imperialist countries 
like Amerika than it is in the Third World. Malnutrition is a far more serious 
problem in the oppressed nations, killing 60,000,000 every year.(5) According to 
the World Health Organization, obesity in Third World countries is generally 
less than 3%. In the field of food production and distribution, overthrowing 
imperialism means first and foremost allowing Third World peoples to produce the 
crops they need to feed themselves. The elimination of cash-cropping and the 
elimination of the exploitation of the peasants and farm workers will likely 
drive up prices for luxury foods in the imperialist countries for a time. 
Inefficient meat production and consumption may also be curtailed in the 
imperialist countries under the dictatorship of the proletariat, to meet food 
needs of the rest of the world.

So Amerikans will lose some of their accustomed privileges after the revolution. 
But at the same time, middle-class Amerikans will also see some health benefits 
under the dictatorship of the proletariat, which will place humyns' rights to a 
healthy and vital life above the right to property. The tobacco industry will 
not be allowed to make a profit off of a lung-cancer epidemic, and capitalist 
agribusiness will not be allowed to make a profit off of an obesity epidemic (or 
coronary-heart-disease epidemic, or any other diet-related epidemic).

Social roots of the obesity problem

Two of the most important risk factors for obesity are sedentary lifestyle and 
high-fat, energy dense diet. These may seem like individual "choices," but as 
always, societal context determines choice. As one obesity researcher put it, 
"We can't just tell people, 'exercise more and eat less,' when for example, 
fast-food places now sell 32-ounce Cokes as their normal size."(7) According to 
another researcher, "More than 5,000 U.S. schools now have agreements with fast 
food franchises to provide school meals."(4)

Moreover, Americans see thousands of advertisements for high-fat and high sugar 
foods while they sit and watch television. The tobacco monopolies (like Phillip 
Morris) created Joe Camel; agribusiness monopolies (like Phillip Morris) created 
the Trix Rabbit, Ronald McDonald, and the "Where's the beef?" lady. "You have 
this huge industry that's spending billions of dollars getting kids to eat 
more."(8)

Capitalist agribusiness not about producing food, it's about producing and 
selling commodities for profit. That these commodities happen to be essential 
for healthy humyn life is beside the point. All the forces which affect 
capitalist industries -- the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, the 
increase in the organic composition of capital (9)-- force agribusiness to 
concentrate more and more on "value-adding" processes which in practice detract 
from the nutritional value of its food. Agriculture in the imperialist countries 
-- contrary to all the rhetoric about the "Green Revolution" -- is actually 
inefficient when it comes to supplying people with nutrients. 

According to anti-poverty researcher Susan George, people in the Third World 
consumed on average about 506 pounds of grain annually from 1969 to 1971. 
"During the same period, in the USA people averaged 1760 pounds of grain intake, 
nine tenths of it in the form of meat, poultry or dairy products... Some experts 
claim that US farming uses more than a calorie of energy for every calorie of 
food it produces. The Club of Rome says the ratio may go as high as twelve to 
one..." Part of the reason for this inefficiency is all the resources 
capitalists waste on packaging and marketing.(10)

Socialism, nutrition, and the middle classes

Some health researchers in the united $tates have proposed reforms similar to 
those which would be undertaken under the dictatorship of the proletariat. 
"Brownell advocated banning fast foods and soft drinks from schools, regulating 
TV ads that are aimed at children, and subsidizing the sale of healthy foods at 
the national level to bring down the cost of fruits and vegetables. He also 
proposed, if needed, a tax on 'poor foods.'"(4)

Reforms like these will be easier to implement under the dictatorship of the 
proletariat, because then there will be no need to balance against capitalists' 
need for profits. If this means the Twinkies plant gets shut down, so be it. 
People who work there won't have to worry about losing their jobs, either, 
because under socialism, everyone is guaranteed a job. Former junk-food-industry 
employees can join their colleagues from the tobacco-industry at new, socially 
productive jobs.

Aside from abolishing "Beef: It's what's for dinner!" billboards, the 
dictatorship of the proletariat will benefit the Amerikan middle classes by 
emphasizing preventive health care, facilitating regular exercise, and educating 
the masses about superior diets -- for example, scientifically explaining the 
health benefits of vegetarian or vegan diets.(11)

However, even though socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat might be 
"just what the doctor ordered," there are many reasons why the Amerikan middle 
classes are not flocking to MIM's side. 

First, as mentioned earlier, the middle classes are politically flabby. They may 
be able to see in principle how these reforms could benefit them, but they lack 
the resolve to carry them out. Not only do such reforms require energetic 
struggle, but they require giving up some privileges. Amerikans choice of 
"foods" will be narrowed -- no more subsidizing the meat industry, no more cheap 
fruits out of season, etc. etc.

Second, weak social-democratic reforms could be implemented inside u.$. borders, 
while leaving imperialism intact. A recent example of this is the Amerikan 
government's decision to investigate and possibly punish the managers 
responsible for defective Firestone tires.(12) In this situation, imperialists 
could still sell their old, deadly products to the oppressed nations, where 
restrictions are more lax. The tobacco industry is clearly seeking to make up 
for market losses at home (and then some) by pushing its product in Asia. The 
imperialist country middle classes might be able to live with that, but it is 
unacceptable to internationalists like MIM.

One final comment

It is true that Amerikans "parasitic consumption levels" contribute to obesity 
in the united $tates. However, some comrades moralistically misinterpret this 
statement -- which is about groups and a social system -- as if Amerikans are 
fat because as individuals they are "gluttons." Conversely, they take fatness to 
be evidence of parasitism. Aside from dropping scientific analysis in favor of 
Puritanism, this approach is wrong because it lets so much parasitism -- which 
need not be sedentary or gluttonous -- off the hook.

In fact, prevalence of obesity and level of parasitism are inversely related in 
the imperialist countries. Adult wimmin who are poor or have less education tend 
to be heavier than those who are richer and better educated.(13) Amerika's 
internal semi-colonies also tend to have more obesity than the dominant white 
nation. 27% of Blacks are obese, compared to 18% of whites.(1) The prevalence of 
obesity goes as high as 60% among some first nations.(14) The decline in obesity 
in Amerikans with high socio-economic status is partly due to the fact that they 
have more time to exercise, better knowledge of and access to healthy foods, and 
better health care.

There is some indication that obesity is on the rise in the Third World, 
although it is still rare relative to the First World.(14) Certainly there is 
nothing about being a proletarian worker -- having nothing to lose but your 
chains, being forced to sell you labor power -- that guarantees a healthy 
lifestyle. Sitting in front of a sewing machine for 12 hours every day can 
hardly be qualified as "active." And one of the effects of imperialism is that 
its agribusiness products become cheaper than locally produced foods. So Third 
World farmers who are thus forced to grow asparagus or whatever for export buy 
nutritionally suspect processed foods -- when they can afford them at all. 

As progressive Peru scholar Carol Andreas described: "Government subsidies 
protect these companies [monopolies Carnation Milk and Nestle] from loss; as a 
result, fresh milk is not available to consumers -- even in milk producing zones 
-- and the campesinos often cannot afford to buy canned milk... The process of 
canning milk is so expensive that imported milk powder is cheaper. This has 
caused a decline in dairy production in Peru..."

"The diet of Indians has changed with the introduction of a money economy and 
government subsidies making available manufactured products such as soda pop, 
noodles, and refined sugar... Sometimes government agents sponsor educational 
programs criticizing campesinos for eating poorly, but without recognizing the 
processes by which nutritional balance has come to be violated."(15)

Notes: 
1. JAMA, 4 Oct 2000, pp. 1650-1651.
2. Body mass index is defined as the ratio of weight (in kilograms) to height 
(in meters) squared. For example, a persyn who weighs 220 pounds and stands 
5'10" has a BMI of 30. 
3. www.niddk.nih.gov/health/nutrit/pubs/statobes.htm.
4. Meg Bryant, "Obesity eating away at American health, dollars," Reuters 
Health, 17 Oct 2000.
5. Quoted from bourgeois author John Robbins' ITAL Diet for a new America, END 
http://www.alchemilla.com/realities.html.
7. Jim Morrelli, "Our big country keeps getting bigger," WebMD Medical News, 2 
Oct 2000.
8. Dr. Steven Gortmaker, Harvard School of Public Health, cited in: Gina Kolata, 
"The fat epidemic: Learning to eat," Los Angeles Times, 19 Oct 2000.
9. Don't know what we're talking about? Read "Fundamentals of Political 
Economy," available from MIM for $15.
10. Susan George, ITAL How the Other Half Dies, END Totowa: Rowman and 
Allanheld, 1977.
11. MIM Congress Resolution, "Veganism and 'animal rights,'" 
http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/wim/cong/vegan.html
12. MIM Notes 222, 15 Nov 2000.
13. World Health Organization, "Obesity epidemic puts millions at risk from 
related diseases," 12 Jun 1997.
13. Kolata, op cit.
15. Carol Andreas, ITAL When Women Rebel, END New York: Lawrence Hill Books, 
1985, pp. 64,74.
16. J. G. Vaughan and C. Geissler, ITAL The New Oxford Books of Food Plants, END 
New York: Oxford University Press, 1997, pp. 211-12.