childhood well-being

 I've recently been thinking about the similarities between our national epidemics of obesity and financial illiteracy. Both are socio-cultural phenomena created through generations of misinformation, misunderstanding and perverse incentives.  Factors like (but not limited to) easy credit and encouraged consumerism without proper consumer disclosure and easy access to abundant, cheap astonishingly unhealthy foods has created a culture of overindulgence on so many levels. Both problems tend to fall disproportionately on poor, low and even some moderate-income households, which lack easy access to alternative options (like banks red-lining disadvantaged neighborhoods; public school cafeterias serving french fries most everyday yet not offering physical education classes). And both are believed to have huge social and economic costs that are now reaching epic proportions.  If similar forces are causing and/or driving these problems, then shouldn't efforts to tackle both childhood obesity and financial illiteracy also be similar?  Only recently has this become apparent to those fighting the battle of such rhetorical bulges.