Counter Epidemic With Healthy Ideas

In a short story written long ago, a man remembers one humid childhood summer when flies became a nightmarish problem. Town leaders hatched a plan to pay children a penny for every fly caught and killed.

By the end of the story, it is revealed that the problem originated near a water source where the flies were breeding. Killing the flies was about as effective as trying to mop up water while a hose runs full blast. The point? You can’t truly solve a problem until you find its source.

Those flies came to mind after an announcement about the latest diet drug. Just when dieters of the world were saved from fen-phen comes the announcement about orlistat. An advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration has judged it safe, and the FDA is expected to approve it for use soon. Remember that fen-phen was also considered safe - until it was linked to heart valve damage and removed from the market. Orlistat has not-so-pretty side effects in four out of every five people who take it - cramping, gas and, sometimes, diarrhea. And some studies have shown an increase in the risk for breast cancer.

The problem with this diet drug and others being prepared for the market is that they miss the reality of “overweightness” in our culture. They are the penny-a-fly solution to a problem with a much deeper source. The time and money spent developing and marketing the diet drugs should be channeled to healthier solutions. Maybe researchers need to look at the effect of all the fast-food advertising. Could it be countered with ads for healthy foods and increased exercise? Or look at the strong role heredity, emotions and family lifestyle play in a person’s size. Or look at this country’s obsession with thinness. Perhaps that obsession could be replaced with the message that people come in all shapes and sizes.

We need to hear less from diet docs and infomercial hucksters and more from people such as Maya Angelou, who answered the thin obsession with her poem “Phenomenal Woman.” It reads, in part:

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.

I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size

But when I start to tell them,

They think I’m telling lies.

I say, It’s in the reach of my arms

The span of my hips,

The stride of my step,

The curl of my lips.

I’m a woman. Phenomenally.