One of my repeating tropes lately has been to ask those who rail against government involvement in setting nutrition standards, "what's your solution?" To me, it's not enough to wax nostalgic on parental guidance as the way to resolve the national obesity crisis, not necessarily because it wouldn't work, but because so few are using it!

Here's a report just out from the Center for Health Reform and Modernization, an arm of United Health that helps sketch out the dangers we face: It estimates, for example, that more than half of Americans will be diabetic or prediabetic by 2020. Health-care spending on this condition now is estimated at $194 billion (7 percent of all health spending), and estimated to rise to half a trillion dollars by 2020. 

The foremost reason for the dramatic increase in Type 2 diabetes has been the steady increase in obesity: "Gaining just 11 to 16 pounds doubles the risk of type 2 diabetes, while an increase of 17 to 24 pounds nearly triples this risk," the report says, attributing the assertion to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

As I took pains to point out during my discussion with Kevin Whalen on WRKO's "Pundit Review" a week ago, the macro costs are staggering for the nation, unquestionably, but that those stats represent individuals who are suffering loss of life, loss of limb (quite literally), and loss of joy in the participation of so many parts of daily life.

Dramatic, life-altering costs, on both the individual and the national levels, and politicians are content to say what people should do to resolve the problem. Even though they're not. 

How's that workin' for ya?