Blunt remarks, however true, are most easily acknowledged from a distance, so when a recent story from Reuters news service appearing in the Los Angeles Times referred to Maine residents as “the fattest people in New England,” it must have seemed obvious to the slender, fit readership of that fine publication. Perhaps they even tsk-tsked as they reached for another forkful of Egg Beaters and thought of the poor Northern chubbies.

But such a view is accepted not only outside Maine or through statistics but from ourselves, and is a habit about as hard to break as New Year’s resolutions are easy to ignore. No one wants to be unhealthy, yet the roughest accounting of what Mainers consume shows endless examples of terrible diets. Everyone knows physical activity is important to good health, yet few get out the door. Blame any particular culprit – the weather, lack of exercise facilities, Mom’s cooking – and some wise guy will point out exceptions to deflate your defense.

The Reuters article, ably written by Sarah Mahoney, was about the latest legislative foray into fat reduction, a healthier citizenry and, eventually, lower health care bills. Bangor Rep. Sean Faircloth has five such bills, which were introduced last week and provoked the expected round of support from health care people and opposition from lobbyists for some of the affected industries. The bills, roughly, would largely remove soda from school vending machines, require fast-food chains to list calories in their lighted menus, direct the Department of Transportation to more often take into account bikes and walking and a study for finding other ways of promoting health and reducing health bills.

An especially silly comment from opponents fed to reporters on the day the bills were introduced was, “It’s not the lousy diet, it’s a lack of exercise” that is making our children set obesity records, as if the two were mutually exclusive or, for that matter, unconnected. Fortunately, no decent reporter picked up on the line.

But this will be the tactic of opponents: Neither Rep. Faircloth nor anyone else could demonstrate that one issue alone – soda, supersized meals (containing all kinds of surprising additives), pedestrian unfriendly roads – would make any difference in this growing health problem. And they would be right. Obesity in Maine has not been brought on by any one problem and will not be solved by targeting a single issue. It will require the hardest thing of all – a change in culture brought on by recognizing that current habits cumulatively are harmful to the health of Maine’s children.

Rep. Faircloth’s package of bills is the most ambitious to date to take on this huge challenge, and his attempt deserves better than the old habit of killing a good idea one piece at a time.