A capital food fight over diet guidelines

It's vegans versus Atkins. It's lobbies like sugar, milk, meat, and soft drinks vs. experts promoting whole grains, leafy greens, nuts, berries, and fiber.

Washington is redrawing the food pyramid - the meal-planning chart that virtually every American knows about but few try to follow. And this time, the effort has become an open food fight, thanks to rising concern about obesity - and the popularity of diets that amount to a full-scale assault on time-honored food groups.

The players include some of the most powerful interests in Washington: The $500 billion food processing industry, the super-sized fast-food restaurant lobby, and an army of medical researchers, academics, and think tanks. In public comments, ordinary Americans are sending in their own recommendations for the food pyramid.

With so many interests weighing in, don't expect Washington to find a miracle meal map. No "beltway diet" is on the way. What's clear is simply that the challenge of obesity and the search for balanced lives has top-level attention.

"The rising rates of obesity in this country represent a public health crisis," says Rep. Henry Waxman, ranking member of the House Subcommittee on Human Rights & Wellness, at a hearing this week. The issue promises to be even bigger in the 109th Congress, which is expected to take up soaring health costs and Medicare reform.

Along with the questions about what people should eat is another divisive one: "Who's responsible?"

With nearly 1 in 3 adults considered "obese" and nearly 2 in 3 "overweight," the Department of Health and Human Services this year upgraded obesity from a behavior to a disease. That could put new pressure on healthcare insurers to cover medical costs related to the problem. At the same time, Republicans are urging new legislation to protect the food industry, especially fast-food restaurants, from obesity-related lawsuits.

Lawmakers see a major toll on national health costs - more than $117 billion a year in 2000, about half paid for by Medicare and Medicaid tax dollars.

Better diets and more exercise, experts say, are part of the answer.

"We need to speed up our response just as we would during an emerging infectious disease outbreak," says Julie Gerberding, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In a talk Thursday at the National Institutes of Health, she urged increased collaboration among government agencies, industry, and other partners to reverse "disturbing trends in the nation's obesity epidemic."

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans has been revised every five years since 1980, but never as openly or comprehensively as the revision due out next year, which is currently up for public comment. A final version will be released in January.

As a blue-ribbon panel pored over often-conflicting scientific research, outside groups urged their versions.

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