Brownell: Personal Responsibility Doesn’t Work (Except When it Does) In January, “Twinkie tax” grandfather Kelly Brownell appeared in a CBS News report to give the U.S. an “F” grade in its fight against obesity. And in typical Brownell fashion, he downplayed individuals' own accountability for their weight: “The personal responsibility approach is a fine place to start. But we've been doing that for forty years now and we're losing the battle with obesity -- that's been an experiment that has failed.” Standard fare from someone who’s been on a crusade to get Big Government involved in our fights with flab. Fast forward to a profile in the Philadelphia Inquirer: Columnist Daniel Rubin recounts how a man worked 175 pounds off of his 400-pound frame through “gradual, persistent changes in both his eating and exercise regimen.” In other words, he took responsibility for his health and got the changes he wanted. In response, Brownell has his usual commentary, downplaying this instance of personal responsibility “remarkably rare”: Brownell ... says Larson has done everything right—and that is remarkably rare. "You have to be vigilant. You have to make a constant series of choices about what you eat in an environment that encourages unhealthy eating in innumerable ways, and you have to be physically active." One-third of Americans aren't overweight. It’s hard to see how they all can be "rare." They live in the same food environment as other Americans. The difference is that they make different dietary and physical activity choices—choices Brownell apparently doesn’t seem to want to make for himself. The Associated Press reported a few years ago that Big Brother Brownell said he got a little bigger due to snacking and decreased physical activity while he wrote his book: He sports a good-size paunch thanks, he says, to a book project that has kept him relatively sedentary and snack-prone for the last year or so. In photographs taken a few years back, Kelly Brownell looks much trimmer. In other words, Brownell admits it was his own lifestyle choices that led him to put on weight. And on CBS News in January, he didn’t exactly look as if he had slimmed down:       Does Kelly Brownell really think draconian government regulations like taxing cookies, brownies, and soft drinks would slim his own figure down? Sometimes, obesity “gurus” should spare us the academic theories about how we don’t have control over what we choose to eat. Perhaps the best advice we could give Brownell (both policy and dietary) is for him to shut his mouth. It doesn’t require heavy-handed government policies to do, and it works 100 percent of the time. Rebutting the Myth of “Evil” High Fructose Corn Syrup There is an old observation that if a lie is repeated enough, no matter how outrageous, it comes to be regarded as a truth. Such is the case with the unfounded claims that high fructose corn syrup is an unnatural sugar that poses novel health risks. Another “expert” jumped on this bogus bandwagon at a Charleston, West Virginia health awareness event on Wednesday. Lisa Lineberg, an exercise physiologist and nutritionist, told an audience at Generation Charleston that high fructose corn syrup is “evil.” Lineberg claimed that high fructose corn syrup raises the blood sugar level to the point where the body cannot efficiently process it. She argued that this leads to ailments like diabetes. But as we’ve frequently explained, there is no scientific evidence that high fructose corn syrup poses unique risks to human health. Once again, here are the facts: High fructose corn syrup is not substantially different from other sugars. The version of high fructose corn syrup used in sodas and other sweetened drinks consists of 55 percent fructose and 45 percent glucose. This is very similar to ordinary table sugar, which is 50 percent fructose and 50 percent glucose. And the form of high fructose corn syrup in foods like breads, jams and yogurt – 42 percent fructose and 58 percent glucose – is actually lower in fructose than table sugar. One study appearing in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition even showed that high fructose corn syrup affects the body no differently than a wholesome glass of milk. So Lineberg’s charge that high fructose corn syrup is linked to diabetes is thus – surprise, surprise – nonsense. Sugar is sugar. Our bodies process all sugars in the same manner. Whether you’re eating a simpler sugar, like fructose, or a more complex carbohydrate like starch, your body treats them all the same. Consuming sugar in moderation is good for the body. But just like with any food, eating too much can make you fat. Still No Evidence That Menu Labeling Works You might recall that last summer anti-obesity fanatics Kelly Brownell and David Ludwig wrote a piece in the Journal of the American Medical Association. They were addressing the lack of evidence that government-mandated menu labeling would actually work. “For some of the most important public health problems today,” the duo wrote, “society does not have the luxury to await scientific certainty.” But according to a Los Angeles Times report this week, the media should have done just that: waited. The LA Times investigation looks at studies conducted following the first menu labeling law in New York City. The result? There’s no conclusive evidence that calorie labeling has changed diners’ habits. Or as we told the Houston Chronicle yesterday, “The findings so far have been mixed. On paper it seems like a good idea but in practice seems relatively ineffective.” Let’s take a look at the evidence: Brownell and others, writing in the American Journal of Public Health, concluded that calorie labels on menus affected food choices. Adding supplementary nutritional information (such as the recommended daily caloric intake) to the labels increased the impact. Diners who were shown just calorie counts, though, made up for the decreased consumption at dinner by eating more later. New York University and Yale professors, writing in Health Affairs, compared diners’ decisions in low-income neighborhoods in New York City (with menu labeling) and New Jersey (without labeling). They concluded: “[W]e did not detect a change in calories purchased after the introduction of calorie labeling.” Writing in Pediatrics, researchers from the University of Washington determined that parents at a fast food restaurant that had menu labeling ordered slightly fewer calories for their children, but not for themselves. Stanford researchers compared data from Starbucks stores and found that labeling decreased the number of calories purchased by about 6 percent, primarily because of fewer or lower-calorie food items purchased. Lastly, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (which supported the original labeling law) presented its own data at an Obesity Society meeting in October, finding that 15 percent of customers were influenced by menu labeling, ordering 106 fewer calories. However, 44 percent of customers didn’t even notice the information. We warned that labeling advocates didn’t have any conclusive evidence that their master plan would work as promised. In 2008, then-top NYC health nanny Thomas Frieden even acknowledged that “we don’t have 100 percent proof that it’s going to work.” It’s too bad some states and localities have learned this the hard way. Of course Brownell is continuing to push labeling, and he probably won’t be happy until calorie counts come on flashing billboards with high-decibel sirens. He’s also peddling social engineering in the form of soda taxes, despite plenty of evidence that it won’t work either. We’re wondering: How much longer are lawmakers going to listen to him?