FOOD CORRECTNESS

"Obesity" as a new tool for the dictatorial class:

"Government on all levels has also been gradually restricting health insurers’ ability to charge overweight people higher premiums. This means the guy who works out five times a week and watches his diet is increasingly being asked to pay the same amount of money for health insurance as the guy who loafs on the couch and dines on bacon sandwiches. ...

The aim of Jennings and these lifestyle activists is to shift responsibility for individual health away from individual Americans, and onto the American public as a whole. Once that happens, the case for massive government intervention in what, when, where and how we eat falls on a more receptive audience.

If I’m paying for my neighbor’s high cholesterol, I’m more open to the idea that perhaps government ought to start regulating what he eats. If we’re all paying for one another’s trips to the doctor, we’re all more likely to support government regulation of what McDonalds can and can’t put on its menu, what Safeway or Kroger ought to stock on their shelves, and maybe it’s not such a bad idea to ban Kraft and Nabisco from advertising cookies and corn chips — especially to kids.

Conversely, if I know my health is my own responsibility, and that my medical bills will be coming out of my own savings account, I’m a little more likely to take care of myself.

Personal responsibility goes hand in hand with personal freedom. We can’t regulate away responsibility without regulating away consumer and personal choice. Worse, countries that have attempted the social engineering efforts now advocated by Jennings and his ilk (Sweden, for example) have seen poor returns, leaving the citizens of those countries both overweight and less free.