[freepatriot32]

this issue has gotton so far out of hand its ridiculous. If this author thinks the government should get involved in peoples weight and food choices he can perhaps point to even one thing the governments of england or america have got involved in where the problem was better afterwords and not 1000 times worse.

[freepatriot32]

ping be warned im not kidding about the barf alert

[ArrogantBustard]

'Way too many people are 'way too fat.

This is not the government's problem ... it is their problem.

[Xenalyte]

Besides, there is the embarrassing fact that those who eat and drink junk do so for cheap comfort and because they are either too poor or too ignorant (or both) to prepare healthy food.

Oh, BS.

No one's too poor to eat healthy. Fresh produce and meat costs far less than the prepackaged frozen stuff.

[wideawake]

In other words, we communized healthcare and now it can no longer meet the needs of the market, so we need to communize groceries in order to assist the failing communized healthcare system.

Facinating mental rpocess at work here.

I liked the anti-American bigotry too.

[Sicon]

1. This article shows us why there shouldn't be government (a.k.a. socialized) medicine: people have no incentive to be healthy.

2. Maybe the reason poor people are fat is the same reason that many of them are poor: bad decision making/lack of personal responsibility.

[steve-b]

if over-processed, over-refined food and junk food were to become expensive while healthy fresh food became cheap — the opposite of the case today

Bravo Sierra! I can get the ingredients for a LARGE (a dozen servings) bowl of healthy fresh chicken-vegetable soup for the price of one jumbo grease meal at Mickey D's.

[Roccus]

But I thought the biggest problem for the poor in this country was that sooooo many poor children went to bed hungry.

Silly me.

[xpertskir]

Obese parents produce obese children, and obesity places a crippling burden on the National Health Service.

Just one more in a long list of reasons for the government to stay out of Health Care.

[Gabz]

Nanny State Ping..........thank you FreePatriot - you are correct the barf-alert was needed.

[Jeff Chandler]

That reminds me: I'm hungry. I wonder what's in the fridge?

[meandog]

Actually, if the liberals are right, poor people should be thin--as in starved! Next time you go to the grocery store, get behind someone using a food stamp card and take a gander at what he/she puts on the conveyor belt. Betcha a paycheck there's plenty of expensive high caloric and starchy items and very few vegetables and fruit.

[Hazcat]

Absolutely! Government money (after all they print it!) and regulation are the answer to ALL things! (/sarc)

[SirJohnBarleycorn]

In these circumstances even the most swivel-eyed libertarian would probably agree, for once, that something must be done and even perhaps by the government. Curiously enough, however, in one of the few areas where our ever-intrusive government might for once justifiably intrude, new Labour does almost nothing.

Obesity, one of the trials of affluence, can be solved only, if at all, by the kind of interventionism that has been discredited by the failure of socialism. Liberty is indivisible; it belongs to the ignorant and the low paid just as much as to anyone else. Perhaps obesity is one of the many prices of liberty.

So which is it? Something must be done by government, or government should do nothing?

The author just wanted to write an article in which she got to call people fatass deadbeat ignoramuses.

[xpertskir]

It doesn’t come well from the consumers of steamed organic asparagus and free-range ducks’ breasts to criticise those who can manage only frozen reconstituted chicken nuggets and sugary baked beans.

Organic foods and free range chickens, I guess this author is a lib. My favorite thing to do to these organic only people is to explain that by not eating GMO's they are helping to ensure starvation around the globe. Because GMO's grow in places where normal vegetables cannot and produce higher yields per amount of water, fertilizer, and general plant care. Talk about making a liberal squirm, I have seen heads explode.

[mysterio]

Fat people had no foresight and didn't stand up for smokers. In fact, some of the most psychotic antismoking zealots were fat people. So now they get to enjoy the machine they created.

[Atlas Sneezed]

Nobody who craves cheap comfort food will willingly give it up. But if over-processed, over-refined food and junk food were to become expensive while healthy fresh food became cheap — the opposite of the case today — people would be forced to eat well. This could be done through taxes or subsidies. Alternatively, you could ration unhealthy food.

---

Communism underlies it all. Of course, they proceed on the false premise that hiring a cook (in the form of buying prepared/processed food) is cheaper than cooking for yourself. That is silly, like saying that houses are cheap, and lumber is expensive.

Don't these people have a pot? A chicken?

I don't care is "food" is expensive. It's the INGREDIENTS that are cheap.

I actually hear this argument from highly educated liberals, and they are never able to offer a response when I ask to see the food budget and (over-refined, junk food) choices made by poor fat people, and let me offer a far healthier alternative at half the cost.

Somebody please tell me, what junk food is cheap? Sure, a greasy fast food burger and fries costs only a couple bucks, while fine dining from fresh ingredients can cost a fortune. However, the comparison is not between McDonalds and fine dining, it's between McDonalds and grilling your own. It's between the Colonel and sticking a chicken in the oven.

If these governmentalists want to persuade me that more government is needed, it would be in having qualifications to receive food aid. You have to prove you are qualified (or submit to training) to responsibly shop and cook.

Let the commies stop giving money to the poor. Let them offer a food bank, government selected menus, with instructions on how to cook each day. (Here's your chicken, here's your beans, here your salad, your corn, your tsp of garlic powder, etc. - here's a video showing how to cook them.) It would be CHEAP to do, feed people well, and TEACH them how to live like independent humans.

How about having the welfare mommies show up for a month of kitchen duty, where they cook lunch for themselves and the kids in a group with supervision, taking turns watching the kids. They would learn how to cook the essentials, and then could be left on their own to cook with (here it comes:) ...INGREDIENTS!

[Billthedrill]

Fat is a class issue. Rich, educated people are not fat; you see almost no children in private schools who are overweight.

Oh, please. The statement is demonstrably false. Here is a particularly lame attempt to fit the issue of obesity into sophomoric Marxian class analysis. That is what passes for serious thought on the left these days.

Colonic polyps are a serious health issue too, but that doesn't mean the government needs to stick a scope up your butt for your own good. They already have the income tax.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

The schools used to make kids take gym class to stay fit.

[GeorgefromGeorgia]

I am opposed to Government trying to regulate this problem. I do think that some Government policies add to obesity. Selling cokes, candy bars and junk food in our schools is ridiculous. I think people are discouraged from walking and bike riding. Road construction frequently does not include sidewalks or bike lanes. I think it is good to require labels on packaged food and fast food to provide nutritional information. Physical Education should be encouraged or required in our schools.

I cannot see Government starting to police food choice, it has a hard enough time at the FDA approving new drugs.

[TAdams8591]

"this issue has gotton so far out of hand its ridiculous. If this author thinks the government should get involved in peoples weight and food choices he can perhaps point to even one thing the governments of england or america have got involved in where the problem was better afterwords and not 1000 times worse."

So true, as I have been saying for the past 25 years.