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Old Tue, Mar-10-09, 08:26
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Judynyc Judynyc is offline
Attitude is a Choice
Posts: 30,111
 
Plan: No sugar, flour, wheat
Stats: 228.4/209.0/170 Female 5'6"
BF:stl/too/mch
Progress: 33%
Location: NYC
Default Food Free Workplace

Refuse To Regain

The Food Free Workplace: A Sore Subject Revisited
Posted: 09 Mar 2009 06:31 AM PDT
DR. OZ UPDATE: Barbara will be a guest on the the Dr. Oz radio show this Wednesday, March 11, however, the show will air anywhere from a day or two to as much as a week after taping. The only way to find out when it's on the schedule is to check under Dr. Oz on www.oprah.com/radio. It will air on XM channel 156 or Sirius 195 (if you have the Sirius/XM package). XM offers a free month of listening on their web site. We will keep our eyes on the schedule and let you know the air date.
Quote:
By Barbara Berkeley
I think it would be safe to say that I have rarely come up with an idea that has taken as thorough a bashing as the Food Free Workplace. It’s worth repeating that the FFW simply suggests that food at work be confined to areas that are away from desks and work centers, not that people stop eating, eat less or even monitor their choices. Nevertheless, the mere mention of controlling access to food inevitably brings forth a flood of criticism and a lot of talk about preserving rights.
For those of you who have written to say that you dislike the FFW, let me assure you that you are not alone. I have a doctor friend, for example, who had been worried about his office staff as he watched the majority become seriously overweight. He noticed daily food consumption at desks and more and more junk food being brought to work. He felt that there was also a problem being created by big lunches being brought in by drug company representatives. He asked my opinion on what to do. I suggested that he sit down with his employees and sincerely tell them how much he cared about their health. I then suggested that he ask the drug reps to limit lunches to healthy foods and that he set an office policy that eating was fine in the office kitchen, but not elsewhere. These ideas went over like the proverbial lead balloon. The office staff threatened to quit, citing their rights. Under continuing pressure, the doctor relented.
Undeterred, I naively went on to suggest the FFW idea to the CEO of a company that was spending large amounts of money paying for diabetes, hypertension, arthritis and other obesity related issues in its employees. The CEO liked the idea, but said that it would “cause a revolution” in his company so he was afraid of suggesting it. He was probably right. Is the FFW simply a really bad idea?
No one likes the feeling of Big Brother dictating what we can and can’t do. Nevertheless, I continue to find the ferocity of the response to this fairly mild policy both fascinating and baffling. Further discussion leads to some controversial political topics, but I think we all know each other well enough at this point to have this debate. So here goes.
A number of you have pointed to the fact that you simply had to learn how to deal with food being around all the time; that this was a vital skill of maintenance. I admire you for that more than you can know. But the fact is that people who have successfully learned to negotiate the constant presence of food are few and far between. The vast majority of people who would like to lose weight are defeated by the nearness of food, which stimulates powerful responses in the brain and gut. Successful maintainers represent a small minority: the group of people who have figured out how to live a singular life within an overwhelmingly unhealthy food environment. When someone says that people just have to learn how to deal with this environment, I hear a variant of what NOWs (never over weight people) say about those who weigh too much, “They just have to just stop eating.” We all know that this is a vast oversimplification. And it places blame on the overweight person, making them seem both irresponsible and gluttonous.
By the way, I am not running from the issue of personal responsibility. We need to do a better job of encouraging people to take responsibility for their own eating choices. That must be a major part of any plan to get our country well again. But the effort against overweight (the consequences of which effect all of us in terms of health care spending) must have a multilateral front. All I am suggesting is that most obese people in this country are buckling under environmental pressure. There has to be some way to give people a fighting chance.
Invoking rights starts us down a complex path. If you make choices that severely impact your health and lead to hundreds of thousands of dollars of medical bills, and if those bills drive up the cost of everyone else’s health insurance, is that choice your right? It always has been your right in America to make “bad” choices up to a point. We do have helmet laws, seatbelt laws and so on. The question becomes this: with the entire population aging and obesity related illness killing 300,000 people a year is this really still about rights? No one wants intervention from schools, businesses or government, but what happens when certain behaviors start to seriously impact our ability to pay for healthcare? Just as with the banking industry, government may be forced to step in if too many people opt for consumption rather than frugality. If you enjoy bringing doughnuts to your desk, but another person is trying to keep weight off and is bothered by the constant unwanted exposure to food, whose rights are pre-eminent? Whose rights are more important? It could be argued that the rights of the person whose health is being impacted have greater weight.
I always thought that in suggesting ideas that would relieve a bit of the pressure of the food culture, I was on the side of those who were waging the long-term weight battle. What I’ve found, though, is that very few people like the idea of giving up choice, even in so minor a thing as where to eat the food you bring. It remains an interesting question and one that obviously provokes strong responses. I’ve had my say, feel free to let me have it if you disagree.

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