There’s a lot of interesting attempts at passing laws coupled with revealing formulations (literally) surrounding what is a very significant problem in the United States: we’re fat. America is a fat, lard-ass country.
NYC mayor, Michael Bloomberg’s sugary drink ban (nanny state or not, you gotta give him props for being brave) has been stopped by the NY State Supreme Court. (Court stops Bloomberg Drink Ban.) While I normally don’t feel sorry for the failures of billionaires, I can empathize with what Bloomberg is trying to do. The man has a city to run and a budget to control, but there are a bunch of overeaters clogging the hallways of hospital emergency rooms.
First, to all the Tea Party Patriots out there: should people be able to decide on their own the size of their own drink? Yes, sure. Are they smart enough to realize that the way they drink those sugary drinks is killing them? No, they’re not.
Therein lies the problem, but it’s no different than the smokers’ problem. Smoking is bad for you, but freedom means we should be aloud to choose for ourselves. Eventually people came to accept and understand smoking bans – once we as a society better understood the effects of our actions… as well as the ways in which they were manipulated to become addicted in the first place.
This is where the nice news stories about junk food manufacturers (manufacture is a better word than makers, and definitely better than cooks) comes into the discussion. Food manufacturers know more about how our bodies react to sugars and salts than we do. They create, test, and refine formulas that put the human body on “the bliss point” when eating: longing for more food; we can’t eat just one.
Oh and did I mention 70% of Americans are fat asses? Just think we should all keep that in mind. 70% of a population is not “a glandular problem.” And we’re getting fatter because biologically, thanks to engineered foods that create addictions just like cigarettes do, we cannot help ourselves.
How about this: is it wrong for your doctor to say, “Hey Bob, you’re really overweight. You need to stop eating so much bad food or you’ll die sooner and probably go bankrupt from all the medical bills.” What if you’re sick and actually in the hospital, you ask for a chocolate cake with butter frosting, but the doctor says you can’t because it will be bad, given your condition…. Is that a nanny state? More to my point, is creating laws that improve the health bad? Sure, we don’t like them, but we’ll live longer…
Another part of this politicized argument is the cost to cities. All these overweight people are getting diabetes and countless other health problems because they can’t stop feeding themselves. They cannot pay their medical bills, so emergency rooms have to pick up the tab. That cost is on the taxpayers.
Does that mean I have a right to call all overweight people slackers who are sucking on the teat of America? They are milking the system dry because they can’t stop eating. Dear lord, this country has a problem.
Obesity is an epidemic; one that has literally been engineered by the junk food industry, and perfectly made for the American consumer system to suck up every last drop. And not those consumers are dying from the gluttony. Cheetos might as well be the Marlboros of the 21st century.
Don’t forget that the people who fought (and are fighting) to keep ginormous sugary drinks, barrels of popcorn and super-sized ice cream tubs are the people who MAKE the junk food. They want to sell that junk food… sell as much as humanly possible (until you die of a heart attack – basically just like the tabacco industry).
Since the messenger is the same person who is spoon feeding the country the exact thing that’s causing the problem… shouldn’t we all stop and think to look for ideas and facts from other sources?
I’m just saying…. I’m not all that proud to be a citizen of a country that apparently now prides itself on the fact that it’s fat and lazy. I can’t tell you how difficult it is for me now to find a damn pair of pants that doesn’t fall off my waist. I have to shop the children’s department now since the average size of this country as expanded into a rotunda of belly fat.
Do you have a right to be stupid (as according to John Kerry)? Yes. But you’re also costing the country billions of dollars in medical bills paying for the results of your lard. I’d rather, bare minimum, Americans weren’t so selfish.
Freedom doesn’t mean you have the right to screw the rest of us over with your own irresponsibility.
