The War on Fat.

• Author: Stanton, Kenneth R.
• Position: Letters - Letter to the Editor

I am one of the three authors of the University of Baltimore's recently released Obesity Report Card, and I found Jacob Sullum's "The War on Fat" (August/September) a great read.

I am far from a proponent of government intervention, but in this case I side closer to Kelly Brownell's view. We can influence children's habits to encourage better health, and we should, just as we did with smoking. Sucking back an 850-to-900-calorie Super Big Gulp is just plain disgusting and ought to be discouraged.

Yes, the sweetened little snacks taste good and you want to eat more even when you suck up enough calories to propel a Freightliner from New York to L.A. We are, on the whole, wealthier than we used to be, so the cost of food is a smaller part of our budget. Still, demand curves slope downward. Make crappy food cheaper, and more of it will be consumed, hitting all of us in the pocketbook: Obesity-related health care tends to be expensive.

Obesity prevalence accelerated upward rapidly in the late '70s and early '80s. Something, perhaps many things, changed at that time to push the balance toward a rapid gain in weight. For one, agricultural subsidy policy changed just prior to that in a manner that encourages overproduction. The growth in Twinkle consumption is in part explained by policies that...