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Smoking is bad, but then so is obesity

Calgary Herald

Health Canada is reviewing those useless but grotesque warning labels on the packages of tobacco products. The most recognizable of which is a set of teeth so rotted that even a British dentist would cringe.
According to a recent study, the original pictures first issued in 2001 have lost their impact. It's de rigueur now to be anti-smoking, but the warning labels have had little impact on the smoking habits of Canadians.
A 2002 Canadian Cancer Society study showed that 44 per cent of smokers said the new warnings "increased their motivation to quit smoking." We can take from this two things:
First, that a majority of smokers were completely unmoved by the images. Second, those who were moved ultimately didn't kick the habit.
Health Canada's own statistics show that between 2001, when the labels were introduced, and 2005, smoking among adult Canadians went from 22 per cent to 20 per cent -- a two per cent drop, which doesn't take into account other smoking deterrents such as increased taxes.
In the five-year period before the warning labels were introduced, the rate dropped seven per cent. Having graphic warning labels on tobacco products is as effective as abstinence literature for teenage boys.
"Big Tobacco" is an easy target. Tobacco executives lied to the U.S. Congress about the addictive qualities of smoking. And the only thing that makes anything real anymore, a Hollywood movie, characterized the tobacco industry as mad scientists intent on making every living human an addict in the Insider.
There's even a new movie out now, which chronicles the fictitious travails of a tobacco industry yes man.
Some will argue government has a place in the smoking dens of the nation because we all have to pay for the health-care cost of smokers' irresponsibility.
Unfortunately, while true, it pales in comparison to the costs surrounding overweight and obese Canadians, and there are a lot more of them, er, us, than there are smokers.
The Canadian Community Health Surveys show that 58.8 per cent of Canadian adults were either overweight or obese in 2004 -- nearly 40 per cent higher than smokers. The study also shows that, as opposed to tobacco use, the prevalence of overweight and obese Canadian adults is increasing.
Here is a list of illnesses associated with obesity from a 2005 Canadian parliamentary study titled The Obesity Epidemic in Canada: Type 2 diabetes, dyslipidemia, insulin resistance, gallbladder disease, sleep apnea and respiratory problems, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, osteoarthritis, cancer and impaired fertility. The study puts the economic burden of obesity anywhere between $1.8 billion and $5.3 billion annually.
Consumers have the right to make an informed decision, even if we ultimately imbibe in something that isn't in the Canada Food Guide (rye is a grain, right?).
But frankly, I could care less if a person likes to fill their fireplace full of Kentucky Dark and stoke themselves a tobacco sauna that would make Rene Levesque gasp for a little fresh air.
We all do things everyday that we "shouldn't." It adds colour to life. It may be eating a Big Mac or hurling down a ski hill.
Heck, some sucker is probably hunting with Dick Cheney as you read this. What's next, gin that warns: "this product may cause you to photocopy your rear end at the office Christmas party?" Or "consumption of this product may cause the opposite sex to find you even less attractive?"
Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada cite research from the U.K. that shows tobacco is the cause of 29 to 31 per cent of avoidable cancer deaths. They fail to mention the same study found that between 20- and 50 per cent of avoidable cancer deaths are caused by diet. Where are the Physicians for a Deep-Fried-Free Canada?
The point isn't to start a crusade against obesity. It is to point out that among the many things we ingest that are harmful to us, tobacco is currently the most popular to denounce even though it is less prevalent than other health issues such as obesity.
The study doesn't demonstrate that the pictures have lost their effect; it shows they never had any effect and that beating an addiction to nicotine requires more than a set of grotesque trading cards plastered to cigarette packs.
Dave Ryan is an investigative humourist.