|
|
Publications |
|
|
|
Ipso Fatso, Part Trois: The Epidemic
By: K. Lloyd Billingsley
4.20.2005
SACRAMENTO, CA - California's ruling class has determined that the state's residents are too fat and it wants to use the legislative process to slim them down. This has happened before but this time we are really in trouble, according to Dr. Richard Jackson, the state's public health officer.
"I've seen an absolute tipping point in public awareness of the epidemic,'' he told reporters.
According to some reports, residents of California gained 180,000 tons during the past decade, which works out to 11 pounds each. How this bloat was quantified remains unclear, like the charge that flab and inactivity will cost California $28 billion this year. True or not, lawmakers are taking aim.
Some want to hike taxes on cigarettes by $1 a pack and use the money for programs related to nutrition and exercise. Others want the food sold in schools to meet nutrition standards. State education superintendent Jack O'Connell believes this will increase student achievement. Lawmakers also want to ban the sales of sodas in high schools - except for extra-curricular activities. And they don't like junk-food advertising.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a former bodybuilder, reportedly wants to lead the charge against lard. Jay Leno joked that this was part of the governor's "No Child Left with a Big Behind Act.'' The governor wants to set aside $6 million in next year's budget to fight obesity. But even some Democrats are dubious that any of the various measures will help people, particularly students, make wise choices about food.
Eating, unlike smoking, is not an optional activity, and people generally eat what they want. Californians have at
their disposal vast knowledge about nutrition. How they use that knowledge is up to them. They can also choose whether to exercise or sit around playing video games.
Personal responsibility is the cornerstone of a free and civil society. Human beings are independent moral agents with the ability to think and to choose. But that concept is missing from the medical model of human behavior, evident in Dr. Jackson's comment, which portrays Californians as helpless victims of an "epidemic'' sweeping the state like influenza. To treat people this way is to dehumanize them, and to pretend that government can solve obesity takes the onus off the individual. Indeed, it encourages them to blame
others.
Our 2002 "Ipso Fatso, Part Deux'' column dealt with people suing deep-pockets fast-food chains for making them fat. In 1999, when we first took up this theme, California's department of health had issued a report criticizing the eating habits of Californians. We noted then the irony of a bloated state, freighted with waste and bureaucratic redundancy, lecturing Californians about food.
The state remains overweight. Many legislators want to expand the beltline with universal pre-school, a dubious program that will require massive spending and hiring. Others push for government health care on a grand scale. These are the political equivalent of an all-you-can-eat restaurant.
When state government actually gets smaller, leaner, and more efficient, then Californians might take obesity edicts more seriously. And as in every area of public policy, only those proposals that recognize the importance of personal responsibility have any chance of helping us trim the fat.
K. Lloyd Billingsley is editorial director at the Pacific Research Institute. He can be reached via email at
klbillingsley@pacificresearch.org.
|
|
|
|
|
 |
