Some of the right moves (maybe) for all the wrong reasons (definitely)

That was my initial reaction to the news that a British ban on marketing "unhealthy" foods during children's television programming is now being looked to as a model by other European countries.

The rationale behind the ban was that it would--can you guess?--help fight obesity in British children. It's a testament to the pervasiveness of fatphobia: Only the O word could be a strong enough incentive to go up against the powerful free-market forces that throw commercials at kids.

Under normal circumstances, to suggest that maybe we don't need to turn kids into little consumers is something like saying you're a commie pinko who doesn't believe in capitalism. (Which I don't, but that's another story.) But when you brandish the O word, it seems, even the junk food marketers hang their putative heads in shame and back off. A little.

That this comes in the context of a British government ad campaign to fight obesity that has no idea what it's doing is hardly surprising. In fact, the ad campaign is a perfect microcosm of everything that's wrong with the war on obesity in the first place.

Conflicts over how exactly to execute this campaign abound. As the New York Times reported yesterday,

The government, for instance, wanted to be able to keep junk food brands from using the [newly developed anti-obesity] logo, but the food industry wanted to leave that decision to marketers.

Already we're landed smack in the midst of the debate over what, exactly, constitutes healthy and unhealthy food. Which, I need hardly add, the British government is not going to resolve, because, as we keep saying here, there are no unhealthy foods. There may be patterns of eating that aren't so good for you, but we know what happens when you demonize certain foods as "unhealthy": They become ever more appealing and powerful.

This is just one example of the kind of ridiculousness the British government is about to get into. Some of the suggestions in its plan to reduce childhood obesity seem positive, like promoting bicycle riding (great!) and offering cooking lessons in schools (also great, if we're talking about real cooking and not what passes for school cooking, which is opening packets and boxes).

But I find it very telling indeed that it takes the dreaded O word to go up against the monied powers that be. Marketing to children is just plain wrong, folks, whether you're selling Barbie dolls, candy bars, or educational computer games. It's wrong because all advertising is a form of manipulation, and our cultural values didn't use to support manipulating young children. And they still shouldn't.

Meanwhile, the Brits are busy fighting over what the logo for this new anti-obesity campaign should be. I'd love to see what's on the table: A headless fattie with a red line through him/her? A piece of chocolate cake with a red line through it? How about a cutesy marketing jingle about not stuffing your face? Really, the mind boggles at the possibilities.

If only all this energy could be used for good. For making the lives of children and adults truly better, and not just a knee-jerk response to the latest hysteria.

A little question of semantics

When I showed my daughter the NYT piece on the fatosphere the other day, her only comment was, "But you're not fat."

What she meant, of course, was "You're not that fat."

Put me next to, say, Ellen Pompano, and I certainly look fat. Put me next to someone who weighs 400 pounds and I don't look fat. Or I don't look as fat.

Fat and thin are words that exist mainly in relation to each other. At the extremes of each range we can certainly identify them correctly. But in the vast middle, our judgment becomes much more relative.

Semantics plays a role in the current anti-obesity hysteria. For starters, the definitions and rules changed in 1998, when the cutoff for overweight was lowered from 27.3 to 25 on the BMI chart. Bingo--instant overnight overweight for millions.

As Paul Campos has pointed out in The New Republic, the way we talk about fat and thin, oveweight and obese and underweight, is something of a shell game.

Fat qua fat is not the problem. Because, after all, we all have fat on our bodies. What's more, we need fat. Without it, your body doesn't work well and your brain sure as hell doesn't work right. I've seen the evidence up close and personal, and it's not pretty.

Think about it the next time you find yourself saying, "But I'm so fat!" or the next time you look in the mirror. Come back and tell me how it changed your perception.

Would you rather be fat or have a mood disorder? Win a prize!

Because those are your two choices, if you listen to the hype around the latest in the slew of anti-obesity sweepstakes entrants, known generically as taranabant. Amid the hysterical buzz that's been making the rounds online, we're now beginning to see mention of "psychiatric side effects." This Scientific American article describes side effects as "nausea, vomiting, and moodiness," and goes on to explain that taranabant is what's known as a cannabinoid antagonist, meaning it blocks the receptors in the brain that are activated by cannabis sativa, or pot. So instead of giving you the munchies, this drug takes away appetite; instead of calming, it "activates," or makes people irritable and anxious.

But wait--I have a better idea. And you can win a prize! Keep reading.

Can me say first how much I hate the photo and headline that ran with this story, too? The head was "New Diet Drug in the Battle of the Bulge," and it ran with this image.

My interpretation of the phrase "battle of the bulge" is people who want to lose 10 or 20 or 30 pounds—who want to be in the lower end of their setpoint range rather than the higher end. This is hardly what even the medical profession would label "obesity." I suppose this image is better than the one that ran with a report on a site called Dogflu.ca., which I'm not going to reproduce here because it's so exploitative.

I think we need an anti-anti-obesity drug marketing campaign, and drugs like this give us the perfect material. We could start by resurrecting the old "This is your brain on drugs" ad campaign. See the fun that's possible?

Let's have a little friendly competition, in fact. You write a clever tagline to go with this new drug, and I'll send a prize to a couple of lucky winners. Ready, set, go.