The calculus of nutrition in America has changed rapidly in the last generation or two. Food is available more cheaply, and in larger quantities, than ever before in human history. Modern farming techniques and shipping methods have made it a snap to put an obnoxiously red tomato on a sandwich in the midst of a New England winter. The scarcity of poverty has largely been replaced by hoards of high-calorie, low-nutrient processed foods.

And the food we have access to is more appealing to our senses. Chemical additives and mad-scientist-grade technologies enable the processed food industry to enhance and combine flavors into concoctions that would doubtless induce some kind of flavorific shock in our great-grandparents who, we assume, subsisted exclusively on oatmeal and boiled cabbage. These cackling flavor wizards can make a jellybean that tastes like popcorn, while still tasting like candy. This is both Horrible and Wrong, as well as delicious with a capital “binge.”

In the face of all this cheap, flavorful food, America’s collective waistband is expanding as rapidly as its trade deficit. Any television news organization that ever sent a camera crew out onto the street to film people from the neck down will tell you that we’re suffering from an epidemic of obesity. By now, they’ve all got fancy graphics and theme music to go with it.

It’s not particularly surprising that we’re ballooning up. After all, we’re mammals. We adapted to survive when food was scarce. If you only get one meal a week, you don’t turn up your nose at the fatty parts. Moderation in those circumstances is a death sentence. We’re suddenly (in evolutionary terms) exposed to a constant surfeit of delicious calories akin to filling a canteen at the bottom of Niagara Falls. It seems almost inevitable that we’d be destined to resemble the mammoths we once hunted.

We’ve even managed to make role models out of people who are bucking the trend of burgeoning waistlines and narrowing arteries. NBC’s The Biggest Loser and CNN’s regular feature Fit Nation, as well as commercials for countless diet plans and exercise methods, showcase people who manage to drop some gob-smackingly huge percentage of their body mass to get down to a more normal, healthy weight.

The thing is, I’m not sure how much this is helping. I don’t want to take anything away from those people who do manage to make such drastic changes. Losing a significant amount of weight is a difficult thing, and keeping it off requires discipline and vigilance. But it is, still, drastic change. I find it hard to believe that most of the people who make a healthy lifestyle change, or those who could benefit from such a change, require such dramatic measures.

Couldn’t we focus some of that attention on people who do something positive before emergency protocols are required? The working family that takes the extra time to make dinner, instead of resorting to fast food. The guy who cuts down on his drinking and loses a few pounds. The woman who gets on a treadmill when she notices that she’s getting winded more easily.

Let’s say, purely hypothetically, that a busy student and no-account blogger is getting into his mid-30s. He’s added a few inches to his waistline since college, and he doesn’t have as much energy as he used to. Plus, he’s about to be a father for the first time, and he’s concerned about setting a good example for his child. So he cuts way down on soda, starts packing sensible lunches, avoids eating out, and starts going to the gym about three days a week.

As a result, he loses eight or nine pounds. He has a little more energy, his mood improves a bit, and his pants don’t fit as tightly as they used to. He’ll never have the anatomy-textbook-illustration body that he’d need as a spokesmodel for a home gym, but he’s made a positive change. And he made it before diabetes, hypertension or morbidity were imminent. Why doesn’t that guy get a chance to win scads of money and fabulous prizes?

The answer, of course, is that there’s no drama there. There’s isn’t anything compelling in a story about a guy who makes some minor adjustments, and sees a slight benefit. Even if there might be a profound long term advantage, it’s difficult to sell a story without significant short term change. We’re a narrative species, and we’ve built a soundbite culture. Nobody cares unless the “before” picture looks like it swallowed the “after” picture, along with a car full of clowns.

So here, for once, is a little recognition for those of you who’ve managed to make small but important changes. You don’t need to be runway-walking stick insect or a Greek statue come to life. What matters is that you’ve taken steps to be a little healthier, and you did it before things got drastically out of hand. Good for you.

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Tags: drama, flavor, health, narrative, nutrition, obesity, priorities, weight

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 12th, 2008 at 5:30 pm and is filed under Panic!. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.