Mixed Messages

Want to know about unintended consequences and what they can do to you and society in general? Look no further than the sudden interest in the obesity crisis. From Michele Obama’s campaign for fitness and backyard gardens to NY Mayor Bloomberg’s war against soda, the government’s major push is against fat.


And its working. According to Gallup, 81 percent of us think obesity is an “extremely serious” or “very serious” social problem. All fine and good, if you ignore that while I was in high school, it was a national crisis that all the girls were developing eating disorders based on unfair media images of women.

The sad thing is, only 67 percent of us rate cigarettes as “extremely serious” or “very serious.” I say sad, because - without getting into the nitty gritty details - using cigarettes is roughly twice as bad for you as being obese. Cigarettes raises your risk of disease 4x, while being obese only raises is 2x. And being just a little overweight actually lowers your risk of dying below 1 (where 1 = average risk) while using cigarettes only occasionally actually puts you at the same risk as an obese person.

The government not only permits cigarettes, it provides manufacturers with tax breaks. Meanwhile, it also helped promote the obesity crisis by pushing low fat, high carb diets as the food choice du jour.

Having promoted both problems, it now tamps down slightly on the most dangerous, while launching an all out war on the less dangerous problem. Most likely because it has run out of ways to shame hard-core smokers, while the social stigma against being obese allows it target them without problem.

The road to hell is paved with canned goods

I'm a bit of a contrarian at heart, and I love when "common wisdom" is wrong; when doing action "A" has a perverse, unintended affect. In fact, I love unintended consequences altogether. Not that I love when they happen, only when I spot them.

Meanwhile, at this time of year, plenty of offices and groups are doing canned food drives. And plenty of people are feeling good about dropping off that can of tuna or soup.

Turns out your good deed might be done better a different way, and might actually do some harm.

All that food can overwhelm food banks. Not to mention that they now have 700,000 cans of high-sodium food to distribute to people who may have high-blood pressure, or jars of peanuts that can't be given to people with allergies. Or some godawful can of creamed something or other that no one knows what to do with.

Not to mention, apparently the food banks can buy the food cheaper than you ever could. Like $0.10 on the dollar cheaper, so it makes much more sense to simply send them a check that they can use to buy food they actually need for their clients. As the article says, eat the can of tuna and donate half its value to a food bank and you've done a much better deed.

As they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

UPDATE: The original title of this post was "In a canned pickle". Like either one better?