The World is Fat: A Sneak Peak into the 9th Annual Michael & Susan Dell Lectureship in Child Health

National Nutrition Month may be coming to an end, but the Center is still bustling in preparation for one our most prominent events of the year. This spring, the Michael & Susan Dell Center for Healthy Living is proud to present nutrition expert Dr. Barry Popkin as its 9th Annual Lectureship in Child Health honoree. Dr. Popkin, a Distinguished Professor of Nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is a global leader in obesity dynamics and food and beverage policy research.

Come April 14, Dr. Popkin will deliver a lecture titled The World is Fat: Child Obesity and Food System Dynamics. To give you a sneak peak into his talk, Dr. Popkin let me pick his brain on drivers that continue to bolster the epidemic and promising policy options that carry the potential to turn the tide.

The obesity epidemic is no longer breaking news. Government agencies, public health practitioners and news media alike have highlighted this menacing trend to the public. So why does obesity persist and proceed to expand despite the epidemic becoming mainstream?

Dr. Popkin presents several reasons. For one, aggressive marketing of unhealthy beverages and foods to all ages by major companies entice consumers to make unhealthy purchasing decisions, promoting and perpetuating bad eating habits. Minority groups are especially targeted by these pushy marketing campaigns, leading to the expansion of nutrition-related health disparities.

Another driver that threatens the health of the consumer is our country’s “inability to create front-of-the-package profiling for all foods and beverages in retailers as recommended by [U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)]-funded Institute of Medicine committees,” explains Dr. Popkin. The FDA voices its support for this type of up-front labeling, but there are currently no policies or incentives for food companies to oblige.

“The two major options with the greatest potential to positively impact the nation’s health are taxation of unhealthy beverages and control of marketing,” asserts Dr. Popkin. These types of obesity-reducing taxations and media regulations are popping up in several countries in Central and South America, the Pacific Islands, East and Southeast Asia, among others. For example, Mexico implemented a tax on sugary drinks in 2014, and initial evaluation of this tax shows falling rates of consumption.

Why is the U.S. dragging its feet on getting these health-promoting policies in place?

The biggest barriers to passing food and beverage policies in the U.S. according to Dr. Popkin: Big money and power expended by the food industry in the form of political campaign contributions may be to blame. Dr. Popkin says, this sort of industry-policy relationship creates a political system that is unable to focus on public health due to the influence of money.

Alongside the food industry’s political pull, major misconceptions about health-promoting taxes and the impact that unhealthy food poses to consumers continue to persist in the United States. “With 40 percent of Americans over the age of two consuming over 380 kcal of added sugar per day, such taxes would make a major impact on a significant segment of the United States,” Dr. Popkin points out. “The skewed distribution of consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages and junk food is not understood by either the scientific or general public.”

Bringing it all into perspective, Dr. Popkin says this: “We are what we eat and drink, and the health of our nation depends greatly on working within a stronger regulatory environment to ensure we begin to consume a much healthier diet. We must create a level playing field that makes the healthy choice the easy choice. This includes removing marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages and working to make healthy foods cheaper (or unhealthy foods and beverages relatively more expensive).”

For more information on Dr. Popkin and the Michael & Susan Dell Lectureship in Child Health, stop by our event page: www.ChildHealthLectureship.org

To register for the event, CLICK HERE.

And for you social media gurus, don’t forget to use the official event hashtag: #MSDLecture

EVENT DETAILS:

9th Annual Michael & Susan Dell Lectureship in Child Health

April 14th, 2:00-3:30pm

Blanton Museum of Art

The University of Texas at Austin

200 E Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

Austin, TX 78712

Written by

Kayla Albrecht

MPH candidate, UTSPH-Austin Regional Campus