Obesity and Laws. Again.

Today at Yahoo!, we learn that there are already some state-level laws in place.

Yeah, okay. I like the latter half of the article.

"There's a lot of fear and hysteria," said Mike Burita at the Center for Consumer Freedom, an advocacy group for the restaurant and food industry. "We're allowing government and these public health groups to dictate our food choices to us."

Among his top targets is the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer advocacy group that produces a steady flow of warnings about unhealthy food, from movie popcorn to Chinese takeout.

"It's OK to have a cheeseburger and fries, but it shouldn't be a mainstay of your diet," Burita said. Exercise and education are the solutions, he said. "Kids went from playing dodge ball to playing computer games."

The skeptics are being heard. A Texas proposal to limit school children's access to snack and soda vending machines died after the state soft drink association complained. Most of the 80 or so obesity-related bills around the country also failed to pass.

"It's difficult to want to tackle something like this, something as huge as this," said Weiner, the Nevada lawmaker. She plans to bring together people from the food industry and the public health community to work with lawmakers.

If people want to be fat, let them be fat. The only thing I've advocated so far is more detailed labelling. I'd be pretty obnoxiously vocal if somehow my favorite junk food were no longer available at my local grocery store, and that's where this may head someday if it goes out of control.

And can't you see it? A butter ration. "Mrs. Noggle, I'm sorry. You've purchased five tubs of butter in this last week. You can't have any more." Nevermind I just finished making 60 dozen cookies to give away (if you gain weight over the holidays, make sure everyone around you gains more!).

In my recent travels, I did notice that people seemed less overweight everywhere I went. In St. Louis, here, it's quite prevalent. But in San Francisco and around Massachusetts....naaa. Someone might carry an extra 10 or 20, but nothing that would cause the health uproar and nothing that couldn't be removed with some extra sweat and nutrition caution.

So there's the blog entry for the evening. I'm off to volleyball.

hln

Posted by: hln at 06:21 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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