Human Behavior

Even Communists Pack It On

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In a previous post, I discussed how obesity levels might just be an indicator of increasing wealth.

The headline of a recent news item reads “30 Percent of Cubans Are Overweight”. Since Cuba is hardly known as a garden spot so far as economic vigor is concerned, this is a pretty good sign that I might be wrong about how more wealth equals larger waistlines.

The author of the news article states that Cubans average over 3,000 calories a day, 30% of which is subsidized rations provided by Castro’s government. Healthy food such as fresh vegetables are prohibitively expensive, and the diet tends towards fried starches and fatty meat.

It could be that food production technology has just gotten so efficient that obesity is in the reach of just about everyone. Except, apparently, for the North Koreans.

Lean Times Are a Thing of the Past

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The incomparable Megan McArdle (who blogs under the name Jane Galt) posted an essay where she discusses a book she read. The book posited a theory about why it is difficult for some people to lose weight, the problem being that they were genetically predisposed to packing it on, and their bodies sent danger signals if the feed bag was removed.

That was interesting enough, but I found the comments left by her readers to be more revealing. It seems that just about everyone seemed to think that America has the fattest people on Earth.

This is simply no longer true, and anyone who is interested has known about this for years. It seems that at least 7 European countries boast populations that have higher percentages of obesity than levels found in the United States, according to a news report from 2005. It has gotten so bad in recent years that even the glacially slow European Union bureaucracy has decided to lurch into action.

One might think that the rest of the European Union, at least, has a population that is slimmer than that found in the United States. Not necessarily. As this essay by Michael Fumento states, some of the data that was gleaned back in 2005 came from surveys where people were asked to gauge their own weight. Since no one who is overweight likes to admit it, it would be prudent to take any claims of how Europeans are oh-so-svelte with a grain of salt.

Europe has a fat problem, so why the widespread criticism of the American lifestyle and high obesity levels? A report commissioned by the food corporation Kraft might shed some light on this annoying example of cognitive dissonance.

“…Europeans view obesity as a problem that affects others, but not themselves.”

There are a few things about the situation that I find very interesting.

First off, the public perception seems to be that Europe doesn’t have an obesity problem and only the indolent and crass Americans must struggle with their weight. Why this is so puzzles me in light of easily perceived evidence to the contrary, but I have noticed that Europeans tend to try and make themselves feel good by indulging in anti-America bigotry. This appears to be a triumph of European feel-good propaganda.

While high levels of obesity have been recognized as a health problem in America for at least twenty years, it seems to be a recent revelation in Europe. Perhaps coincidentally, Europe also lags behind the US in economic development. In fact, it appears that Europe is 22 years behind the US since they just reached the level of prosperity we enjoyed way back in 1985.

Hmmm. 1985. When did the obesity problem in the US first kick in to high gear, anyway?

One of the fattest countries in Europe is Germany, which enjoys an improving economy. Cyprus also has an obesity problem, and according to the CIA Factbook they enjoy a much higher level of growth than the standard EU rate.

Is there a correlation between GDP and obesity rates? Maybe. I have never studied economics so I am not qualified to say. But it certainly seems possible to this layman.

Quote of the Day

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Reductio ad absurdum done right.

The Upside of Income Inequality

By Gary S. Becker and Kevin M. Murphy
From the May/June 2007 Issue of American.com

For many, the solution to an increase in inequality is to make the tax structure more progressiveā€”raise taxes on high-income households and reduce taxes on low-income households. While this may sound sensible, it is not. Would these same indi Ā­viduals advocate a tax on going to college and a subsidy for dropping out of high school in response to the increased importance of education? We think not. Yet shifting the tax structure has exactly this effect.

You Get What You Measure

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David Foster, in the comments to my previous post, links to this article. Actually, one of the factors that got me to thinking about the problem of bureaucratic failure about 10 years ago was an article in some British medical journal, probably either Ā the Lancet or Ā BMJ (I can’t remember which and if anyone knows this article, I’d appreciate the cite), talking about how measuring specific performance factors in the British Hospital system made things less safe because anything that was not on the government performance evaluation was not given any thought or resources, and the government had missed some pretty big and life-threatening issues. If it jogs anyone’s memory, I believe that the author was an Indian practicing in Britain.

As a small ā€œlā€ libertarian, I tend to take the same approach to civil society and business regulations that I take to parenting. Laugh if you wish, but I came across an expression of this philosophy when I was 7 or 8 in a children’s book, The Great Ringtail Garbage Caper. It’s a book about a bunch of raccoons who take matters into their own hands and “borrow” a garbage truck to make their own rounds when two new garbage men start cleaning up too efficiently. Pretty libertarian book, now that I come to think of it. It resonated, and I even thirty years later I still recite the line verbatim:

ā€œMake as few rules as possible, but don’t take ‘no’ for an answer.ā€Ā

“Requirements Kill”

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A commenter on the post immediately preceding this one links to his own thoughtful essay on project management. This kind of thing may be old hat for the PM gurus here but it’s meat to me. You might like the essay if you, like me, are interested in the dynamics of managing big technical projects, and particularly if you are interested in how projects fail.