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Letter to the Editor
Washington Post
(Washington, DC)

Letter to the Editor
Published in Washington
Sept. 6, 2003

Weighty Advice

By Jessie Gruman

Of course, a person's weight results largely from many choices made during the day. ["It's a Weighty Problem, but a Crisis? C'mon," Outlook, Aug. 31]. The orange juice or the soda? The car or the bike? But those choices also are influenced by the availability of options and incentives.

For example, Texas and California just restricted sodas and snack foods in school vending machines, and the Food and Drug Administration recently ordered food manufacturers to put information about trans fatty acids on their labels.

So what is wrong with getting people to at least start thinking about losing weight? The publicity that Fred Barbash decries might help.

One thing that the federal science establishment can do, and has not done, is to direct research money not only to the biology of obesity but to the psychology of it.

After all, if you give a man an Oreo, you feed him for a day. If you teach him how to eat broccoli, you keep him healthy for a lifetime.

JESSIE GRUMAN
Washington