Michael Swickard
“American consumers have no problem with carcinogens, but they will not purchase any product, including floor wax, that has fat in it.” – Dave Barry
Americans have a love/hate relationship with every aspect of fat, from fat cats on. They hate fat and love donuts.
I am not casting any stones from my fat glass house. However, some have said that because of the potential extra health care cost, if you are fat, government must save you from you and also save us from you. Government officials say they have a mandate to do so because of health care reforms that put their noses right over our bathroom scales and into our refrigerators.
Example: in the German state of Saxony, according to Reuters, a member of parliament said it is unfair and unsustainable for the German taxpayers to carry the cost of treating obesity-related illnesses in their public health system. That is an interesting statement that seems to say that if you eat that Twinkie we will not buy your Insulin. How far are we willing to take this approach?
Incurring more costs
People with calorie-rich lifestyles do incur more costs than citizens who smugly limit themselves to carrot sticks and bottled water at parties. If they do not live longer than the unhealthy people at least it will feel longer.
Those who smoke, drink more than is prudent, shake salt on food and camp out at buffets are not making good choices. But fat? The government must first ascertain if you are fat. Imagine citizens made to strip naked and stand on a scale. A government worker announces, “232.5 pounds, step down, put on your clothes and go to window five. Next!”
It reminds me of last year when airline fuel prices were so high and the airlines were trying to find some way to snake more money out of the pockets of flyers. It was proposed to weigh every passenger and then charge them an extra fee if their real weight (not the weight shown on the driver’s license) was above a certain standard for their height and gender.
Already airlines charge people who take two seats. The airliners use more fuel to fly more pounds, so why not monetize the extra pounds? This idea did not get off the ground.
If it had I would have gone to the airport the first day to see the first portly person put protesting on the scales. Again, I am not picking on fat people since I belong to the club.
A train wreck
So what about our cares-about-each-of-us government weighing each of us for a healthy Body Mass Index that would be applied to our taxes for the health care system? Our government tends to use the sledgehammer approach to making citizens toe the line. How would this same government indicate to people sensitive about their weight that they are 50, count them, 50 ugly unhealthy pounds overweight?
It would be a train wreck. What occurs to me is that I do not think there is much chance that the people in our country would revolt otherwise, like citizens of the American colonies did in 1776 – that is, except if our government makes them stand on a scale and be confronted with the reality of their real weight. The cry will be, “Give me liberty from bureaucrats with bathroom scales or give me death!”
I can see it now. One of the fat states might just leave the rest of the rest of the states. It may be a Southern state with a history of calorie-rich comfort food. No government worker can ever go to the Deep South and ban fried chicken, eh?
The attempted cure might be interesting. The nanny government will try to keep me from eating the wrong things or too much of even good things. It would result in no more unemployment since it would take more than just a few people to physically keep each of us large ones from the buffets and lunch counters. The minders would have to lurk everywhere. About the only thing that would have any chance to work is duct tape but it would also really limit my abilities in talk radio.
I know these government nannies would be doing all of this imposition on my way of life for my own good and the good of the U.S. treasury now that the government has a financial interest in my health. But am I so different than other Americans? Jay Leno observed, “For the first time ever, overweight people outnumber average people in America. Doesn’t that make overweight the average then? Last month you were fat, now you’re average – hey, let’s get a pizza!”
Who decides?
So who decides the right weight? With me the answer is “less” but some people might be only a little fat. Does that count for anything? I do know that fat is dangerous, according the Dennis Miller. He says, “A recent police study found that you’re much more likely to get shot by a fat cop if you run.”
The nanny health care government: People know where they want to start, but the more interesting question is where should they stop? The easy answer is that probably they should stop before they cause a revolution against a government not smart enough to leave us fat people alone with our comfort foods. Praise the Lord and pass the Double Fudge Ice Cream Sundae.
Swickard is a weekly columnist for this site. You can reach him at michael@swickard.com.
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