Weightier matters no longer have to wait, to paraphrase the great Stephen Sondheim. Or weight is about to be regulated, caught in a pincer movement. A report from Richard Dobbs, a director of the McKinsey Global Institute, and Boyd Swinburn — get this — the Director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Obesity Prevention at Deakin University in Melbourne, notes that — get this — The Global Burden of Disease Study by the World Health Organization and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation says humanity passed an important milestone a few years ago. It seems that in 2010 obesity became a bigger public health problem than hunger: two-and-one-half times as many adults and children are “obese or overweight” than are malnourished, knocking $2 trillion per year, or 2.8 percent off world GDP. Here’s the really bad news, except for creationists: “Relying on knowledge about obesity and will power is not enough to offset” — get this — “the evolutionary instinct to overeat.”
Conclusion: more research is needed. The sort that experience with another discovered global threat, warming, teaches inevitably precedes regulation. There is “a strong case for experimenting with interventions,” write Dobbs and Swinburn. So look for, first, more research; second, Michelle Obama-like “suggestions” on proper diets; third, a table of weight limits for people of various heights; fourth, taxes and other means of coercion to make it painful to exceed those limits. Appropriate appeals processes will be put in place, of course.
