This City Is Going on a Diet
Here’s an example of an admirable effort to improve public health without spending a dime of government money: On Jan. 1, Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett challenged the citizens of his city to lose 1 million pounds. As part of this initiative, residents can sign up on the mayor’s interactive website, “This City Is Going on a Diet,” which has recipes, exercise tips, and a place for people to track their weight loss, among other helpful tools.
This program caught my eye because the mayor was featured on Fitness magazine’s “Champions of Health & Fitness 2010″ list. As of January, 40,436 residents have lost a collective 519,460 pounds (the mayor himself lost 38 pounds). Restaurants have responded by creating low-cal offerings that they list as “the mayor’s special” on menus (no government mandates required). The best part is that the interactive website was entirely funded by contributors from the private sector. No taxes or bans on unhealthy foods were imposed, and no taxpayer money was spent. As I noted in my last post, the low level of government spending on public health in Missouri doesn’t necessarily have to result in hampering efforts to encourage our citizens to be healthier. Creative, fully voluntary ideas like this one should be encouraged and copied.
Good grief! You mean no one in Oklahoma City has heard about the benefits of losing weight until the mayor told them?
This is a creative, fully voluntary idea that gets the citizenry used to the concept that the government is the guide to everything.
Comment by Margo — March 20, 2010 @ 7:10 a.m.
[...] two counties in Wisconsin, like Oklahoma City, want their residents to be more healthy and physically fit. Unlike Oklahoma City, they are using [...]
Pingback by Spending on Health | www.statehousecall.org — March 22, 2010 @ 5:52 p.m.
Whether or not people take steps to improve their health of course ultimately depends on personal responsibility, but given that so many people are still either ignoring advice to lose weight or are struggling with doing so, I welcome a privately-funded effort such as this. In this case, the government isn’t forcing anything on its citizens or even spending their money, so it’s not really the government who’s the guide. The mayor is merely setting a positive example and providing city residents with a very helpful tool (the website) to aid in achieving their health goals.
Comment by Charis Fischer — March 23, 2010 @ 4:08 p.m.
There’s an interesting post over at the Health Journal Club that makes the case that people should just not eat anything that wasn’t a food 100 years ago. Gets rid of the aspartame, bleached GM flour, high fructose corn syrup garbage they try to pass off as food these days. If interested you can read on it here,
http://healthjournalclub.blogspot.com/2010/01/100-year-diet.html
Comment by Philip — April 1, 2010 @ 1:34 a.m.
I think something like the “100 year diet” is definitely a good blueprint for people to follow. Any truly nutritious diet would probably meet that requirement most of the time. I personally wouldn’t completely swear off things like diet soda and white flour, but obviously it’s a good idea to eat those things in moderation.
Comment by Charis Fischer — April 1, 2010 @ 3:45 p.m.