A Replay of the Golden Oldies in Obesity Policy

In a perverse way, it is nostalgic. Yesterday, the Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) published the latest edition of their annual series: State of Obesity 2024. Though the subtitle is “Better Policies for a Healthier America,” it seems more like a replay of golden oldies in obesity policy. Reading this report, we come away with a simple solution for the excess prevalence of obesity. Eliminate disparities, give everyone access to healthy food, direct consumers to choose better food, tax unhealthy food, build heathier communities, and grant everyone access to healthcare.

There’s one more, but really it could be the one and only. Fix the root causes of chronic diseases. Why haven’t we thought of this before?

In this 76 page report, you have to read all the way to page 61 before you can find a scant mention of the GLP-1 medicines that are transforming the lives of people with obesity. Forgive our impertinence, but that’s like a report on the COVID pandemic that mentions vaccines only in a footnote.

Food Is Medicine
GLP-1 Medicines Are an Issue

In this report, food is medicine and it dominates the recommendations for action. Certainly, equitable access to healthy food is important. Unfortunately, severe obesity is already prevalent in the population at all ages. Throwing food at this entrenched problem won’t do much to reverse obesity in the large numbers of people already living with it – especially persons with severe obesity.

The scant mention of highly effective treatments for obesity presents a dismissive view of them. They present “key issues for healthcare and public health sectors to consider in the coming years.” In other words, we’re not ready to think about them.

Contrast with Other Diseases

Let’s contrast the golden oldies of obesity policy with the approach to other serious chronic diseases – like asthma.

In 1999, the CDC rolled out the National Asthma Control Program, funding states, cities, and other organizations to improve asthma care. The goals are reducing asthma-related deaths, hospitalizations, and missed school or work days. This is public health policy that is serious about reducing the impact of a chronic disease. The goal is “to help the millions of people with asthma in the United States gain control over their disease.”

The policy proposals for obesity in the TFAH report are not serious about controlling this disease. That is because they largely ignore effective care for obesity – care that gives people control over their disease. Yes, healthy food is important. But it does not cure obesity or put it into remission.

It’s time to get serious about obesity and deal with it as we would any other chronic disease.

Click here for the report from TFAH and here for their press release. For perspective about the “root cause” of obesity, click here and here.

The Nostalgia of the Infinite, painting by Giorgio de Chirico / WikiArt

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September 13, 2024