Refusing to serve
Last night at dinner with some friends, I heard about Louisiana's debates over whether or not McDonalds should be able to refuse to serve food to the overweight and obese.
While it's a novel idea, I don't think it is a good one. I believe it's a bandaid on the true problem of obesity. Besides, how do you think this rule would be enforced? It likely wouldn't be. There would be mass hysteria, riots, and who knows what else.
I do however believe that the government should be regulating what types of foods can and should be served in fast-food restaurants such as McDonalds or Burger King, Subway, or Quiznos, to name a few.
You've heard me talk about these issues before.
Our healthcare system is in a crises. Type II diabetes is running rampant. What used to be an adult disease is now being growing in the population under 15, even under 10. I walk around the streets on my way to work, I see little kids (or not so little kids) whining to their mothers about wanting candy or ice cream, or Burger King. I see parents giving in, I see parents eating donuts and then finishing whatever their child does not.
I see massive health problems.
Working in a hospital, I see patients all the time who have multiple medical problems. Diabetes, if not well managed can lead to End Stage Diabetes, and believe it or not, you can die from this. Your kidneys shut down from diabetic nephropathy, you develop renal failure, if it carries on long enough End Stage Renal Failure, leading to dialysis. Eventually dialysis isn't even enough.
Diabetes can lead to blindness through retinopathy, where the blood vessels in the eye get destroyed from lack of oxygen because the blood is saturated with glucose. When this occurs often enough, eye tissue scars and retina can detach from the viscera of the eye.
Finally there is peripheral neuropathy, the nerves in your legs, feet, arms, fingers, they too die from damage. If this happens you go numb, you don't feel pain if you were to injure your feet for example, the injury worsens, skin can break down, and your body cannot repair itself, again, due to lack of oxygen. When this occurs, you can lose fingers and toes, and feet.
I once had a patient who had such severe diabetes, he had to have both his legs amputated above the knee, was blind, and was dialysis dependent. How did he get here?
Eating habits are at least in part to blame.
This is why I know that having teenage employees working at McDonalds telling a customer he or she cannot order food at their restaurant will never work. Mass chaos would ensue.
Instead, it is high time that the government take action. Action to alter the food environment in which we live.
The government I believe needs to regulate what foods can be produced. Rather than taking money and "research" from lobbyists who work for big business, it is high time that the government really look itself in the eye and say, "It is time for change."
As usual, my soapbox is, the "Fat Tax." Please re-read that post for a review. http://dietarydramasanddrivels.blogspot.com/2006/08/my-soap-boxyou-heard-it-here-first.html
So, while I applaud Louisiana in their desire to avert a continued obesity crisis, I think they would be better to institute a very high tax (embargo of sorts) on the unhealthy foods, so high that it becomes rather un-affordable, and subsidize healthy foods with that money, therey making it affordable, desirable, and the way of the future.
While it's a novel idea, I don't think it is a good one. I believe it's a bandaid on the true problem of obesity. Besides, how do you think this rule would be enforced? It likely wouldn't be. There would be mass hysteria, riots, and who knows what else.
I do however believe that the government should be regulating what types of foods can and should be served in fast-food restaurants such as McDonalds or Burger King, Subway, or Quiznos, to name a few.
You've heard me talk about these issues before.
Our healthcare system is in a crises. Type II diabetes is running rampant. What used to be an adult disease is now being growing in the population under 15, even under 10. I walk around the streets on my way to work, I see little kids (or not so little kids) whining to their mothers about wanting candy or ice cream, or Burger King. I see parents giving in, I see parents eating donuts and then finishing whatever their child does not.
I see massive health problems.
Working in a hospital, I see patients all the time who have multiple medical problems. Diabetes, if not well managed can lead to End Stage Diabetes, and believe it or not, you can die from this. Your kidneys shut down from diabetic nephropathy, you develop renal failure, if it carries on long enough End Stage Renal Failure, leading to dialysis. Eventually dialysis isn't even enough.
Diabetes can lead to blindness through retinopathy, where the blood vessels in the eye get destroyed from lack of oxygen because the blood is saturated with glucose. When this occurs often enough, eye tissue scars and retina can detach from the viscera of the eye.
Finally there is peripheral neuropathy, the nerves in your legs, feet, arms, fingers, they too die from damage. If this happens you go numb, you don't feel pain if you were to injure your feet for example, the injury worsens, skin can break down, and your body cannot repair itself, again, due to lack of oxygen. When this occurs, you can lose fingers and toes, and feet.
I once had a patient who had such severe diabetes, he had to have both his legs amputated above the knee, was blind, and was dialysis dependent. How did he get here?
Eating habits are at least in part to blame.
This is why I know that having teenage employees working at McDonalds telling a customer he or she cannot order food at their restaurant will never work. Mass chaos would ensue.
Instead, it is high time that the government take action. Action to alter the food environment in which we live.
The government I believe needs to regulate what foods can be produced. Rather than taking money and "research" from lobbyists who work for big business, it is high time that the government really look itself in the eye and say, "It is time for change."
As usual, my soapbox is, the "Fat Tax." Please re-read that post for a review. http://dietarydramasanddrivels.blogspot.com/2006/08/my-soap-boxyou-heard-it-here-first.html
So, while I applaud Louisiana in their desire to avert a continued obesity crisis, I think they would be better to institute a very high tax (embargo of sorts) on the unhealthy foods, so high that it becomes rather un-affordable, and subsidize healthy foods with that money, therey making it affordable, desirable, and the way of the future.
posted by Dana M. Ellis, MPH, R.D. @ 7:27 AM
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