In an ambitious 478-page report, the IOM refutes the idea that obesity is largely the result of a lack of willpower on the part of individuals. Instead, it embraces policy proposals that have met with stiff resistance from the food industry and lawmakers, arguing that multiple strategies will be needed to make the U.S. environment less "obesogenic." ...
"People have heard the advice to eat less and move more for years, and during that time a large number of Americans have become obese," IOM committee member Shiriki Kumanyika of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine told Reuters. "That advice will never be out of date. But when you see the increase in obesity you ask, what changed? And the answer is, the environment. The average person cannot maintain a healthy weight in this obesity-promoting environment."
Got it? They've nagged us for years and they're tired of being ignored. So the men on the chessboard will tell us where to go. They'll regulate the food content and tax what isn't approved as the first step to punishing "wrong" behavior. For our own good, of course, we'll enjoy the mushrooms.
And you'll pay extra whether you are over-weight or not. Look, my mom thinks I'm too thin as it is. But my BMI is 22.3. But I wonder about the calculations when I figure I could still lose more than 25 pounds and be considered in the normal range. I cannot imagine how emaciated I'd look if I lost 25 pounds. If I was a child you'd take me from my parents and force-feed me chocolate malts. Regardless, I'm sure that I've benefited from generations of thin ancestors lording it over their more girthsome neighbors. I must pay for those sins. Hey, maybe I can be called 3/5 of a person?
Mind you, I like broccoli. But if the government says it costs them too much when you don't eat broccoli (because the government is taking over providing health care), they will make you eat broccoli. And make you check in at your community health center for required exercises if that doesn't work. And whatever else they think is best for you. After all, they pay for it when you don't. It's only fair:
What this means is anyone’s guess, but it isn’t far-fetched to infer that a government-mandated health-care system eventually would necessitate a government-mandated diet to control costs.
First they want to make you buy health insurance in case you get sick--and fine you if you don't (and jail you if you don't pay the fine). Then they'll make you change your behavior to make it less likely you'll need to use the health insurance they made you buy in case you get sick. Will jailing you in conditioning camps where they will attempt to re-educate you about healthy eating and exercise be far behind?
And yet even as one part of the big government set tries to take away our right to eat what we want because Americans are getting fatter, other parts of the big government set argue that lack of food is a problem. Oh, it is hard to say people are starving--or even hungry very often--when weight goes up, so they try to prove "food insecurity" and "food deserts" instead, with bizarre definitions that have no effect at all on the continuing rise in weight.
And food stamp usage goes up. That's how government programs work, eh? One program gives you money to buy food and another copes with the bad choices you made about what food to buy and tries to get you to consume less food. Pay one man to dig a hole and another to fill it. One pill makes you larger and one pill makes you small. When logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead and the White Knight is talking backwards and the Red Queen's "off with her head!" Remember what the doormouse said: "Feed YOUR HEAD... Feed your head."
One day, Americans will cross to Tijuana to get real American-style tacos and to Windsor to get a Tim Horton's donut. And wealthy Americans will go to Thailand for Bakery Tourism. (But watch out for the fat-free Ho Hos masquerading as the real stuff!) And in places where people can't make a run for the border, you'll buy unsafe Cheetos made in unlicensed back street fryers from unsavory characters in the rougher parts of town.
And American law firms will go to work arguing that the food police target people who are born with a propensity to gain weight, and we will have a civil rights issue born. Obviously, new government programs will be needed for this problem. Instead of a rainbow coalition of many hues of equal people with grievances we'll have a scale of many weights of equal people with grievances. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson could both make the transition no problem from what I've seen on TV.
At the end of the day, both people and our government will get bigger. That environment never seems to change. And it all makes sense even if your mind is moving slow:
Go ask Julia. When she's ten pounds overweight. I think she'll know.
UPDATE: Thanks to Pseudo-Polymath for the link.
