Obesity

Officially New Zealand is ranked number 3 in the world for having the fattest population, just behind Mexico (2nd) and the US (1st) from the OECD's new obesity report.

Why are people getting so fat? Either they don't know the consequence when they eat (maybe they don't have a mirror) or they know but they don't care enough or don't have the will to change. Of course genes defect can always be a possibility too. But whatever the cause of this, as a country we are suffering heavy costs associated with obesity.

What do we do about this? So-called experts suggest that we should impose taxes to junk food or sweet drinks; other insists we should ban advertisements of unhealthy food. Sure there are more cries for better education, better infrastructure for walking and cycling, or encouraging the parents to have meals with their children more often. To be honest, I don't think any of these would solve the problem but instead they just create business opportunities for some selected industries. The worst part is that it penalizes normal people who may want to eat junk food from time to time. I mean what is the problem here: unhealthy food or people not controlling themselves?

Maybe we need to ask ourselves, is obesity as bad as alcoholism or drug addiction? Yes this is a tough question with lots of viewpoints to consider, but if we don't change our social acceptance and perspective on people being overweight, we will never solve this issue at all. I totally agree with airline companies to charge extra for overweight passengers, or insurance companies to charge higher premium for these higher risk people. On the other hand we should have equivalent clinics or associated programs like AA for them. We don't care about those who don't care about themselves, but we do care about those who want to change. The quicker we can divide among the overweight population (i.e. separating the savable ones with the hopeless ones), the more effective we can solve this problem with appropriate policy and incentive mechanism.

I hope the government will be sensitive about this and act sensibly, instead of focus too much on the fast food chains or soft drink companies.