Re-educating the food industry, population to embrace healthier lifestyles

>>> chose this from "the new york times" yesterday. michael mudd writes this. how to enforce ethics on the food industry . with tobacco the length between product and disease is direct and singular but it is less clear with food. the rise in obesity is the result of multiple factors. suburban life discouraged walking and escalators replaced walking. even the increase in two become households has had an huge. discouraging cooking and increasing reliance on packaged food and chain restaurants . it it all adds up. he writes this. the industry is guilty because it knew what the consequences of his actions might be. large food processors employed a flock of ph.d. nutritionists and scientists. it was as plain as the number on the bathroom scale but instead of acknowledging this and taking action to sell a better product more responsibly food processors paid innocent by blepeding in with the crowd of causes and time to end the charade and mandate the needed changes that the industry has refused to make. i thought it was snating afascinating and in line what we are talking about more and more these days. the book "sugar fat salts." the author we had on and wrote "the new york times" magazine piece how the food industry is how it's involved and it may need to change and this may go the same way the cigarette lawsuits did, i think it's all coming together.

>> ron fournier we can see what happened to the cigarette industry over the past decade and tobacco industry . still a tough fight for lawmakers. i think this jump is much larger jump and i think there is going to be a a lot of frustrated legislators, even though there is, obviously, a real connection between obesity, health care issues and our growing national debt . but bloomberg is seeing, it's not so easy to do.

>> the article really makes a smart point about how deeply ingrained this is as a cultural problem and almost like the drunk driving analogy and how it took 20 years of reeducation of the entire populous to really get us to understand that drinking and driving was a huge problem. it wasn't something that could be litigated. it was something that had to be attacked culturally. maybe instead of trying to think about how we enforce integrity on this industry, we think about how we get money out of the industry to help educate the populous like we did with cigarette smoking .

>> hopefully, something can happen onity own. everyone says that i want -- i can't think of a better idea. i don't see it as michael bloomberg 's loss. i think he has pushed this issue into the national psyche and it's actually going to help some people.

>> we could do some things, though. if the federal government wants to get involved then they can attach federal dollars to schools having p.e. for one hour.

>> my gosh. unbelievable. they don't move.

>> kids do not move.

>> they don't move. you wonder why they are fat.

>> strenuous exercise would not only be good for them when it comes to health but help them learn better in school. we know at times we have all exercised. you get charged up. don't smirk at me like i've never exercised before, rattner.

>> you like to say you never exercise.

>> i just smoke and drink and eat a lot.

>> that's what he says.

>> but i think you're exactly right, ron . i think we need to have cultural changes. i want to bring up what coca-cola is doing. mika says they are doing it just to prevent a lawsuit. i'm not so sure about that. coke has been around a hundred years. they have have impressive initiatives and i think if other corporations like coca-cola step up and start pushing these initiatives and start pushing. i would love to see some of these massive grocery store chains start working aggressively at putting, you know, whole foods type stores in these food deserts in urban centers .

>> at a price people can afford. whole foods is wonderful but you can't afford it. ridiculous the prices.

>> easy to make cultural changes than legislative ones.

>> one is big here because they want to get in front of it.

>> michigan has the highest obesity rate. prohibiting putting in kind of these restriction oz drink size.

>> did they really? they dichlt i wad.

>> i want to know how orlando airport can be gum-free.

>> ron has to take his child to school.

>> ron , thanks.

>> ron , thank you so much for being with us.

>> thanks for having me.

>> we hope you'll come back.