Please, sir, I want some more.

• Author: Rundles, Jeff
• Position: RUNDLES wrap up

I HAVE OBESITY ON MY MIND AS I PONDER the world around me this spring, and the only thing I am sure of is that people everywhere are pretty comfortable with more and, ultimately, will want some more still.

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A disturbing report out. from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control says that by the year 2030 fully 42 percent of American adults will fall into the category of obese, up from 34 percent today, with 11 percent severely obese in 18 years where just 6 percent fall into that category now. Another one-third of American adults, the CDC says, are overweight. In 1980 - 32 years ago - adult obesity stood at 15 percent.

On the heels of the CDC report came another report from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) that claims obesity is riot the result of a lack of power, and it recommends a whole host of policy changes - changing government farm subsidies. altering zoning laws, introducing a tax on sugary soft drinks, etc. - because of what it calls an "obesity-promoting environment." A number of others dispute that lack-of-willpower assertion, with a group called the Center for Consumer Freedom, funded by the restaurant and food industries, among others, saying the IOM recommendations would "actively reduce the number of choices Americans have when they sit down to eat."

I'm all for some of the policy changes proposed - more sidewalks, adding weight-loss programs in a broader array of health care insurance coverages, increasing physical education in schools, encouraging more Fresh produce production by altering farm price-support programs fbr wheat, cotton and other commodities, to name a few - but I am riot convinced that changing the "obesity-promoting environment" will do much to alter behavior. People like what they like and, apparently., they want some more.

While all of this is going on, there are several other seemingly unrelated weighty issues occurring around the world that, to my mind, are part and parcel of the same thing.

In early May, voters in both Greece and France rejected politicians and policies. that, basically, had called on the populaces of those countries to go on a severe fiscal diet in the wake of the massive European debt crises. Up to a point...