New York’s top health official is leading an effort to raise awareness about the dangers of the state’s obesity problem.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday that Acting Health Commissioner Howard Zucker will participate in a series of events this week around the state intended to highlight the risks of obesity and ways to combat it.
Cuomo’s office says obesity has reached “epidemic” levels, with a quarter of New Yorkers considered obese and 36 percent overweight. The state’s costs associated with treating diseases associated with obesity reaches into the billions.
Zucker’s community visits coincide with National Public Health Week.
(AP)
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So what has worked in the past?
Well, banning cars and public transit would work – people who spent an hour or two, walking to work, tended not to be obese.
Cutting food supplies would help. Actually all that would be needed would be a massive sales tax on anything edible and cutting subsidies that allow people to buy food. This has worked in the past. When the price of food went up in Ireland in the 19th century (due in small part to a potato fungus and a great deal due to British government policies), the result was a noticable decrease in obsesity among the Irish (when millions arrived in New York in the “coffin ships” people remarked on how thin they were).