Posted on 12/01/2011 10:08:07 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
(CNSNews.com) – Former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) says obesity threatens America’s “national security” because many people who join the armed forces cannot pass the required physical tests because they are overweight.
Frist also cited a 2010 study on the problem entitled “Too Fat To Fight."
“Childhood obesity is something much larger than something that just hurts and pulls back and restrains our economic strength. It threatens our security, our national security as a nation,” Frist said on Tuesday at the "Building for a Healthier Future" summit held in Washington, D.C.
“Between 1995 and 2008, over 140,000 potential military recruits failed their entrance physicals, failed them because they were too heavy,” said Frist. “That’s 140,000 young men and women who were motivated enough to enlist but, because of being overweight, could not. They were the ones who wanted to serve their country, who were willing to put themselves in harm’s way, and they were told, ‘No, you’re too heavy to safely be trained.’”
He continued: “We hear the quotations all the time from people who are right on the front line. Retired four star U.S. Army General Johnny Wilson said that childhood obesity, and I quote, ‘has become so serious in this country that military leaders are viewing this epidemic as a potential threat to our national security,’ end quotation.”
Frist then mentioned a report by retired U.S. military leaders that analyzed the effects of obesity on military recruitment. The report called on Congress to reauthorize the Child Nutrition Act with several modifications.
The “2010 study was even more direct and it was titled simply, ‘Too Fat To Fight,’” said Frist.
He may — MAY — have a point.
Nanny State PING!
These nanny staters are insane.
Not even in the top 100 federal issues AFAIC
That's absolutely correct people. If the government decides you're overweight (fat) then you should be arrested for treason because you're not in shape to serve your country. The Federal Government owns you, your family, your children, your property and your life. Your only purpose in life is to serve the federal government and whichever of the two tyrannical political parties is in power. If you're not properly physically fit then the federal government should put you on work farms where you can do hard slave labor for Democrats/Republicans until you get into such a state that the federal government can use you for cannon fodder in some never ending conflict in the Middle East in order to defend Saudi oil fields or poor oppressed Muslims.
Aside from the fact of us being “too fat to fight”, do we still have the manufacturing/production capacity to fight another WWII should the need arise? I tend to doubt it.
Oh carp! Now I’m a National Security threat!
If that was a tweet, I’d retweet it!
Oh, and how convenient of you not to urge the peasants to swear allegiance to the Great American Soviet Motherland! You lack revolutionary fervor, comrade, and you will be re-educated!/s;)
Before the gov’t goes after families over fat kids - oh wait, too late...
If the gov’t - and the First Lady Food Dictator in Chief (I have still to see her credentials on the subject) - are serious about American’s health, let them do what we can’t: Go after the big chemical companies that put HFCS (High Fructose Corn Syrup - in most all soda, fruit drinks, prepared foods,) grow GMO crops and plump up beef and chickens with Growth Hormones - that kids get in milk, cheeses and meats - unless the family goes all organic, which many cannot afford.
HFCS, growth hormones, GMO crops - are banned in many countries - in Europe and even Mexico. For example, all Coca Cola sodas in America are made with HFCS - and in aluminum cans. try finding it made with cane sugar and in glass.
Yet - they make Coca Cola with cane sugar and in glass - for Mexico, Canada and other countries -
This only way these companies will stop pushing these poison on he public is for people to get educated and STOP BUYING these FRankenfoods. If we count of the FDA/gov’t to protect is, we will die waiting - their hands are in the pockets of the big chemical companies.
“the American consumer sits on their collective asses that is being fattened by high fructose corn syrup while companies like ADM convince congress they’ve done the best thing for the people.
High Fructose Corn Syrup is banned in Europe as part of a long list of genetically modified foods made in the US, and Mexico is just beginning to allow the flow of HFCS across its border as part of the NAFTA agreements.”
(Both the corn hybrid that is used to make HFCS and the GMO foods are a product of the behemoth chemical co., Monsanto...who means to control the production/ownership of our foods.)
http://hfcs.wordpress.com/about/
But some people are waking up -
Quick, shoot the fat people?
When you’re fat, you can’t outrun the enemy?
In event of an actual all out war the troops weight is going to be the least of this nations worries. Basic Training can eliminate a majority of weight issues. The problem is we would not have enough equipment and no factories to build more. Thanks of course to Poppy, Clinton, Smirks, Obama and the one party congress for the past 22 years.
Say China ole buddy ole pals can you build us a {insert critical defense need here}. Frist {thank goodness he is out of office} was like many in DC who never really was in touch with realities of the real world.
This was tied in with Newt’s efforts to get ‘physical education’ restored into shool programs. It was not a ‘social engineering’ by way of our lifestyle; food and fats, sweets. . .choice of beverage et al much less our kinds of transportation we should eventually avail ourselves to. That said; no; it does not sound good; but, think Newt recognizes an even bigger enemy when ‘control’ of all the above; is amped up from Left.
Dang I wish we had an edit feature for old farts like me.
I don't support a government solution, and am no fan of ‘nanny state’ politics, but I do believe that this is a significant problem, for many reasons.
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