понедельник, 8 октября 2012 г.

With anti-tobacco effort as guide, eating is targeted


WHEN does a movement that once seemed reasonable begin to slip its moorings? When Michelle Obama began her anti-obesity campaign, I thought it seemed like a good idea. Get the kids outside and by all means, limit their intake of sugar water, er, soda. But worrisome signs were there, evident in the campaign against cigarettes. The health reasons are valid, no denying. But the effort was freighted with an extraordinarily high snottiness quotient.

The world is full of people who know how you should live, and they’re always looking for excuses to advise you on your errors. All that self-righteous preaching almost made me want to start smoking again. The anti-tobacco movement largely succeeded and it showed how the same approach can be applied elsewhere. Soon, you had New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg ranting about trans fats and sodas. Yeah, the health reasons are there, but, c’mon.

This is the government, telling you how to live right down to ounces of consumption. Anybody see a problem? Slippery slope, anyone? Bloomberg’s latest obsession is sweets in hospitals. He announced a campaign to have sugary and fatty foods eliminated from hospitals, public and private. It’s voluntary, but this bandwagon has momentum and hospitals are signing on. So, if you’re in New York and you’re stuck in the waiting room, sorry, no candy bar. “If there’s any place that should not allow smoking or try to make you eat healthy, you would think it’d be the hospitals,” Bloomberg said.

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