This October EL is doing it's first ever issue on the politics of health. What's political about health, you say? The better question is: what isn't?
The thing is: we don't stay healthy (or unhealthy) in a vacuum. We are influenced by the world around us and the laws and regulations that help shape it.
Take government nutrition guidelines. They attempt to establish how much of certain things we should eat or not, and whether to classify certain foods as healthy or unhealthy. And most of us (having been forced to memorize the now-abandoned food pyramid as children) have a vague sense of these guidelines and try, almost by reflex, to follow them. But come to find out (on page 22 of the October issue of EL) that many government-backed dietary recommendations have been influenced by food-industry lobbyists. In 2007 alone, food-industry interests spent more than 70 million dollars to ensure that government recommendations were "friendly" to the processed-food industry. And, sure enough, just a few weeks after an industry "grant" to the American Diabetics Association, the organization's chief medical and scientific officer claimed that sugar has no influence on weight or diabetes. (Gasp!)
But politics doesn't just content itself with food. Another interesting fact: our economic system is based primarily on consumption -- by design. The rise of the rabid consumer was planned by the folks who wanted to usher in a period of unparalleled economic growth after World War II. They saw constant consumption of goods and services as the only way to sustain large-scale economic growth. Some devilishly clever marketing here, a bit of planned obsolescence there, and, voila, fifty years later consumption has become the single sustaining force in our economy as well as our national identity. (One of the troubles with this paradigm, of course, is that consumption has been shown not to promote lasting happiness or life satisfaction. It can also lead to money troubles. In fact, therapists are now starting to classify and treat "money disorders.")
The list of ways that health and policy intersect is endless. Flip through the October EL for a closer look at some of the key issues. Meanwhile, tune in for the presidential debates tonight. No matter what your political bent, the sparring should make great TV. In fact, I pre-emptively declare the upcoming series of debates the best new show of the year.
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