Public policy targeting obesity (Nanny State Alert!)

The Washington Post ^ | 8/10/2003 | Ceci Connolly

[xrp]

WASHINGTON, Aug. 10 — As obesity-related health costs soar, policymakers nationwide are pursuing legislative solutions modeled after the anti-smoking campaigns of the 1990s to attack what many in the medical community say is one of the gravest threats to the nation’s long-term health.

IN THE District of Columbia and half a dozen states, lawmakers are debating bills that would require fast food and chain restaurants to post nutrition information such as caloric, fat and sugar content on menus.

[xrp]

As more and more of America's children are ushered through government schools and lose their ability to think and reason, government will start doing all the thinking for us. It started with 'illicit' drugs back in the early half of the 20th century, continued with tobacco and now is going to end up forcing, through legislation, all Americans to become vegetarians.

[Normal4me]

"“The non-obese are forced to subsidize the obese” in the form of higher insurance rates and government health programs such as Medicare and Medicaid"

I weigh 140 lbs, will I be taxed the same as the fatties? If so, will I not be subsidizing the healthcare of the obese? My cig taxes already pay for shiny new fire trucks and lord knows what my beer taxes pay for. Oh well, might as well quit fighting the system, hit myself really hard in the head with a hammer and become a liberal! < /sarcasm >

[Anarchist]

Assemblyman Felix Ortiz proposes that the tax proceeds go for exercise and nutrition programs. Sure. Just like the tobacco settlement money went for anti-smoking programs and not pork barrel projects.

What a crock of used bovine food.

Why oh why do these welfare statists think they must run our lives for us? What we eat is none of their business!

[SamAdams76]

Assemblyman Felix Ortiz proposes that the tax proceeds go for exercise and nutrition programs.

A waste of taxpayer money. Nobody has ever gotten slim off a government program. In fact, many people get fat and lazy on them. Especially when they push that infernal Kelloggs-Nabisco-Kraft food pyramid.

[JohnBovenmyer]

How about need testing the food stamp and school lunch programs? Too heavy for your height and you get reduced or zero freebie calories on the grounds that more food isn't good for you.

The lib food police should be able to develop simple standards that will avoid true starvation and allow exemptions for the rare medically special cases. The current social service bureaucracy should be able to administer such at minimal additional cost. There would be a one time cost to buy a lot of scales, but we'd save a lot more on not feeding the overfed. Of course people would still have the right to be fat at their own expense.

[Dolphy]

So, if the next step after attacking the tobacco industry was banning smoking in public places around the country, will the next step here be banning overweight people from eating in public?