Tuesday, June 27, 2006

In the battle against obesity, we should limit fast food chains

Newsday.com--
you know the arguments... America's too fat. So our government officials, you know the ones, the ones that don't think that we're smart enough to take care of ourselves, the same ones that want to take Pepsi and Coke out of schools. When Councilman has decided at least in New York, that poor people are overweight due to a high concentration of fast food.
" Councilman Joel Rivera, health committee chairman, said at a hearing Wednesday he was exploring the idea of using zoning laws to prevent fast food joints from taking over city streets. More than half of adult New Yorkers are overweight or obese. "You're not going to totally eliminate fast food restaurants, but you could limit the amount," Rivera said after the hearing. "

OK, let's follow this logic.
I will concede that a regular diet from the dollar menu from a fast food outlet is not exactly the most healthiest diet that one can be on, but it may be the only diet [at least on the road] that one can afford.
If I am overweight, I have nobody to blame but myself. However, government feels that it is their duty to step in and regulate your eating habits for you instead.

5 comments:

MAX Redline said...

Heh! We're from the government. We're here to help.

Sorry, gov. I don't need your "help". The most helpful thing you can do, gov, would be to butt out and allow me to live my own life - on my own terms!

Bobkatt said...

I have no problem with the schools banning soft drinks. When I went to school, albeit in the stone age, we had no soft drinks of any kind, no vending machines at all. And we were not allowed to leave the campus at lunch time. I would prefer that nutritional classes were increased along with an emphasis on personal responsibility. Also there are some schools that don't even offer P.E. because they don't want the students to have to shower together.
The "fat police" join the ranks of the other "it's my job to protect you from yourself" crowd of I'm smarter than you,self appointed, self-empowered social Nazis.
From the book the Diet Myth by Paul Campos:
"Indeed these opponents of the war on fat have subjected the supposed medical justifications for that war to devastating criticisms. Such critics point out that there is nothing new about either America’s “obesity epidemic,” or the public health warnings it inspires. For more than fifty years now, government officials have been making the same dire predictions concerning the public health calamity that is about to befall us as a consequence of the nation’s expanding waistline (as long ago as the 1950s, nearly half of America’s adult population was supposedly overweight)."

Anonymous said...

Poor people are overweight because they can't afford fresh veggies and fruit. It has to do with money, not habits. Kind of like our government.....

Unknown said...

The obesity is very danger, it could kill you, no matter if you are still very Young. You must to think about your health, and start exercising but just walk although be just 10 or 20 minute for day. The obesity could stunt even your sexual development. So is very important you think about the seriouness of the case. I suggest you to buy viagra but just if you start to take care yourself.

Unknown said...

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