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Authors: Deborah Cohen
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food it serves. The complaint was accepted without question by our lawmakers when they exempted from menu-labeling laws food outlets that have fewer than twenty locations. After all, packaged foods are already labeled with the nutritional ingredients, and the nutritional ingredients of unprocessed food are listed in free databases published by the USDA.
Moreover, there is ample free software that allows anyone to figure out the nutritional content of any recipe. All it takes is some basic knowledge of arithmetic and algebra. If businesses in the food industry can figure out how to order their supplies, pay wages, fill out their taxes, and meet the demanding requirements of sanitary regulations, surely they can figure out what is in the food they are serving and how much is in each portion. Worse comes to worst, a restaurant can hire a registered dietician to help on a one-time basis.
Nobody would expect restaurants to make changes to their serving sizes overnight, but it should take no more than a day for a restaurant to teach its servers how to use measuring cups and kitchen scales, andless than a year for all types of food outlets to implement standardized portion sizes. It should take no more than a few years to figure out how to redesign supermarkets to help people make better dietary choices—if we make it a national priority.
After all, bigger changes are being made all across the United States to integrate the more than fifty million Americans with disabilities. Cities and towns everywhere are changing the designs of sidewalks and intersections so people in wheelchairs can navigate the streets. All new stores and restaurants and buildings are now wheelchair-accessible, with ramps or elevators so people who cannot walk can patronize the premises. All the bathrooms in these facilities had to be designed to accommodate wheelchairs as well.
Despite many of the provisions of the ADA, it was popular with politicians and passed with few concessions. Why? Because every politician knew someone or had a close friend or family member who was disabled, or was himself suffering from some disability. 7 Tony Coelho, the bill’s original House sponsor, had epilepsy. Senator Lowell Weicker, the original Senate sponsor, had a son with Down syndrome. When he lost reelection, Tom Harkin, who had a deaf brother, became the Senate sponsor. Other politicians had close experiences with disabilities. Edward Kennedy’s son, Teddy Jr., had lost his leg to cancer. Bob Dole had a paralyzed arm from a World War II injury. Orrin Hatch had a brother-in-law with polio who slept in an iron lung. President George H. W. Bush’s son Neil suffered from a learning disability. His son Marvin had much of his colon removed and had to wear an ostomy bag. And his favorite uncle was a quadriplegic.
At the time of the bill’s passage there were forty-three million American constituents who were disabled—most of them voters. It would have looked cold and somewhat cruel for a politician to vote against the disabled.
Now there are more than 150 million Americans who are overweight or obese. If everyone could agree that a food environment that encourages consumption of extra-large portions and impulse buys of junk food is as much of a barrier to weight control as a flight of stairs or a curb is to the disabled, we could create an atmosphere that wouldbe conducive to fixing the problem at a common and malleable leverage point.
The analogy with the ADA shouldn’t be taken too far. I am not at all suggesting that people who are overweight or obese are disabled. It’s just that we are all human—not machines, not automatons. We are a species that is wired to be inquisitive, adventurous, and to take advantage of opportunity. When too much food is available, our DNA has us wired to eat more than we need. Our natural proclivities must be taken into account as we build a society that prides itself on creating conditions that do not increase our risk of disease
Moreover, there is ample free software that allows anyone to figure out the nutritional content of any recipe. All it takes is some basic knowledge of arithmetic and algebra. If businesses in the food industry can figure out how to order their supplies, pay wages, fill out their taxes, and meet the demanding requirements of sanitary regulations, surely they can figure out what is in the food they are serving and how much is in each portion. Worse comes to worst, a restaurant can hire a registered dietician to help on a one-time basis.
Nobody would expect restaurants to make changes to their serving sizes overnight, but it should take no more than a day for a restaurant to teach its servers how to use measuring cups and kitchen scales, andless than a year for all types of food outlets to implement standardized portion sizes. It should take no more than a few years to figure out how to redesign supermarkets to help people make better dietary choices—if we make it a national priority.
After all, bigger changes are being made all across the United States to integrate the more than fifty million Americans with disabilities. Cities and towns everywhere are changing the designs of sidewalks and intersections so people in wheelchairs can navigate the streets. All new stores and restaurants and buildings are now wheelchair-accessible, with ramps or elevators so people who cannot walk can patronize the premises. All the bathrooms in these facilities had to be designed to accommodate wheelchairs as well.
Despite many of the provisions of the ADA, it was popular with politicians and passed with few concessions. Why? Because every politician knew someone or had a close friend or family member who was disabled, or was himself suffering from some disability. 7 Tony Coelho, the bill’s original House sponsor, had epilepsy. Senator Lowell Weicker, the original Senate sponsor, had a son with Down syndrome. When he lost reelection, Tom Harkin, who had a deaf brother, became the Senate sponsor. Other politicians had close experiences with disabilities. Edward Kennedy’s son, Teddy Jr., had lost his leg to cancer. Bob Dole had a paralyzed arm from a World War II injury. Orrin Hatch had a brother-in-law with polio who slept in an iron lung. President George H. W. Bush’s son Neil suffered from a learning disability. His son Marvin had much of his colon removed and had to wear an ostomy bag. And his favorite uncle was a quadriplegic.
At the time of the bill’s passage there were forty-three million American constituents who were disabled—most of them voters. It would have looked cold and somewhat cruel for a politician to vote against the disabled.
Now there are more than 150 million Americans who are overweight or obese. If everyone could agree that a food environment that encourages consumption of extra-large portions and impulse buys of junk food is as much of a barrier to weight control as a flight of stairs or a curb is to the disabled, we could create an atmosphere that wouldbe conducive to fixing the problem at a common and malleable leverage point.
The analogy with the ADA shouldn’t be taken too far. I am not at all suggesting that people who are overweight or obese are disabled. It’s just that we are all human—not machines, not automatons. We are a species that is wired to be inquisitive, adventurous, and to take advantage of opportunity. When too much food is available, our DNA has us wired to eat more than we need. Our natural proclivities must be taken into account as we build a society that prides itself on creating conditions that do not increase our risk of disease
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