Following on earlier posts here and here on how the U.S. anti-obesity industry often misrepresents the nature and extent of the health problems related to widespread obesity in American society, Laura Vanderkam reviews NY Times nutrition columnist Gina Kolata’s new book, Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss–and the Myths and Realities of Dieting (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2007) in which Kolata challenges the conventional wisdom that an obese person’s capacity to lose weight and maintain that reduced weight is merely a question of an individual’s willpower.
Despite Kolata’s book and a growing body of research that questions the anti-obesity crusade, investing in anti-obesity appears to be a potentially lucrative investment opportunity. A case in point is this Merrill Lynch research report on how best to invest in “the emerging obesity epidemic.” Table 5 presents “stocks that represent the ML Obesity Theme” which, by the way, includes Whole Foods and Wild Oats Markets.
“The developed world is getting older and fatter,” writes ML analyst Jose Rasco. “People are increasingly eating more proteins and processed foods, leading more sedentary lives and gaining weight.” Inasmuch as ML projects that the number of obese people worldwide will increase to 700 million in 2015 from 400 million in 2005, there’s money to be made in those companies that are fighting obesity or, as ML might say, “why not monetize a trend of more fat people?”
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Longtime Houston attorney Tom Kirkendall's observations on developments in law, business, medicine, culture, sports, and other matters of general interest to the Houston business, professional, and academic communities.
My thoughts on this are as follows:
1. I completely believe that obesity is not just a question of willpower.
2. I also think that as an society, we make it difficult to keep weight under control. Portion sizes over the last couple of decades have gotten crazy.
3. Even for those people who are trying to be careful about what they eat, it is difficult to figure out how many calories are in restaurant food. I remember reading about a study that showed that even nutritionists under estimated the numbers of calories in restaurant portions. If they can’t do it, even super motivated people are going to have difficulty.
4. Our society is addicted to sugar and processed food and large portions are the new normal. Not everyone can afford most luxury goods, but most folks can afford some really junky food.
I think it is quite possible to believe that obesity is not just willpower but to also think that our society is structured in a way that makes it more difficult for those who genetically are predisposed to obesity. For example, I like that Kellogg’s is going to stop marketing sugar cereal with licensed characters on the boxes. Personally, I wish that more restaurants had accurate and easily accessible nutrition information. They don’t want to make that information known, and I think often individuals want to remain willfully ignorant of some of that information. (It’s hard to drink lots of margaritas when you know how many calories are in those suckers).
Interesting reading,
Steph