Doggett Opening Statement at Health Subcommittee Hearing
(As prepared for delivery)
I know you are passionate about healthy lifestyles and chronic disease prevention. An estimated two million Americans die each year from a chronic condition. There are steps we can all take as individuals to make healthier choices, but today I want to primarily focus on the obstacles to making those choices.
My daughter, Dr. Lisa Doggett, is a family physician and certified in lifestyle medicine. She recently went through a lifestyle questionnaire with me and my wife, Libby. I jokingly told her she was cutting everything fun, but the reality is that many of the foods we are consuming aren’t really food—they are engineered products designed to trigger addictive eating habits.
After successfully manufacturing a smoking crisis and getting millions of Americans addicted to nicotine, Big Tobacco replicated its playbook in the food industry. Tobacco companies purchased large food brands and began reengineering and ultra-processing products until they bore little resemblance to natural foods. They loaded foods with additives to make them taste better—high in salt, sugar, and fat content.
In one egregious example, they took the same flavor additives in cigarettes and added them to sugary beverages marketed to children. While companies across the food industry were shifting to ultra-processed goods, Big Tobacco-owned brands produced these hyperpalatable foods at a higher rate—manufacturing another addiction crisis.
These companies also applied some of the same marketing tactics from the tobacco playbook. Shifting focus groups to include children rather than parents and repackaging products with colorful characters, catch phrases, and free toys. Candies were shaped to look like diamond rings, cookies in the shape of cartoon characters, and other tactics to appeal to kids. Adults were sold on the convenience of ready-to-heat meals and long-lasting shelf-ready snacks.
Today, we are paying the price, as obesity rates and chronic disease rates skyrocket, including among young children. Mental health has declined as consumers cycle through shame and their diets contain insufficient nutrients to maintain their energy. Many are feeling trapped from the addictive nature of these products.
While each of us must take personal responsibility for our own health, many Americans face obstacles that impair that choice. Multiple factors interfere.
Economic insecurity makes it difficult to afford natural foods. Financial struggles can mean a deficit in time as workers juggle long hours, commutes, and caregiving duties. Natural foods often require preparation, while ultra-processed foods come in ready-to-eat forms. Many Americans also live in food deserts with few healthy food options at local stores and in food swamps where the only options are ultra-processed foods.
I appreciate the efforts some Medicare Advantage plans are making to improve access to nutritious meals, but I remain concerned that too many plans severely restrict supplemental benefits to certain consumers and geographic areas. Meanwhile, ads mislead consumers into thinking they’ll receive free meal delivery, gym memberships, and more. For those who are eligible, fine print caveats limit the value and the promised benefits are just nominal discounts.
MA plans are being dramatically overpaid, costing taxpayers billions more each year than Traditional Medicare. Rather than overpaying private insurance MA plans, we can cut taxpayer waste and use the funds to improve Traditional Medicare by covering nutritious meals, counseling, and other benefits like the dental, vision, and hearing care, which many with chronic diseases require more often.
These are important steps to treat the crisis we are in, but we should not just be in the Sick Care business. We must also address root causes, including the proliferation of cheap, hyperpalatable, ultra-processed food products that are harming Americans’ health.
I look forward to hearing more from our expert witnesses about the challenges to maintaining a healthy lifestyle and solutions to improve the health of all Americans.
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