The Government Says You're Fat

CNSNews.com ^ | May 15, 2003 | Tom DeWeese

[Tailgunner Joe]

The government - ever eager to control every aspect of your life - has now launched a campaign to determine what and how much you eat.

Having taken over much of the health system via Medicare, the government is now concerned about the cost of illnesses resulting from obesity, the same way it worried about the cost of illnesses associated with smoking. As such, the government has embarked on an effort to control individuals' personal lifestyle choices, as well as accusing the fast-food industry of causing obesity.

The lessons of Prohibition, the outlawing of alcoholic beverages in the 1920s, have not been learned and the result is the virtual criminalization of the tobacco industry and now, it would seem, the fast-food industry.

In her book, "Dependent on D.C.: The Rise of Federal Control Over the Lives of Ordinary Americans," author Charlotte A. Twight says, "Few things are more personal than health care, nor more alien to the legitimate functions of limited government. Yet few things are higher on the U.S. government's agenda at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Step by step, the federal government is usurping power to substitute its medical judgments and therapeutic choices for those of individual patients and their physicians." Most Americans are unaware that the newly proclaimed US policy comes right out of the United Nations.

The UN's World Health Organization and its Food and Agricultural Organization issued a draft report making the case that various restrictions must be imposed on everything from soda to snack foods in order to save the world from fat people. The UN report manages to ignore the estimated 815 million undernourished people in the world.

It is a plan to create an Orwellian world in which everyone is compelled to do what Big Brother tells him or her to do. The US campaign, though couched in terms of obesity's financial costs, is a subterfuge for even greater control over our personal lives.

Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson was on television recently, pointing a finger at the fast-food industry and urging it to "do what is right for Americans."

What is right is the right of every American to determine what and how much they eat, and to be responsible for whatever consequences they encounter. This is not a public issue. It is a private one. It is one in which the government should have no role nor say.

The absurdity of the new war on fat people is the assertion, soon to be a nationwide environmental campaign, that housing developments actually cause Americans to exercise less, thus contributing to obesity, diabetes and other disorders.

This is pure junk science that defies common sense, but watch as Americans are told that suburban life is the new enemy that is killing them.

It is a hop, skip and a jump from telling Americans they are too fat to issuing regulations to ensure they do not exceed daily food intake rules set by the government. It's an extension of the same government control that now includes smoking restrictions.

Getting fat or staying slim is a personal lifestyle decision. It is not the government's right, nor role, to determine, and the new campaign, initiated by the UN, can lead to still further loss of freedom in America.

[Stay the course]

The Government Says You're Fat

I say I'm just big-boned.

[Shooter 2.5]

Hydrenated fats is what put me in the hospital with an angioplasty last week.

I thought I was doing everything right with my diet and exercise. I thought as long as I was eating treats with low fat I was alright. What I found out was I basically poisoned myself.

There is no reason why a person should have to read the ingrediants in prepared foods to see if they can survive the meal.

[FairOpinion]

Have you consulted your schedule for today, defined for you by the government? You better stick to it, or the Ministry of Schedules will have your hide. ;)

People don't realize that while all this sounds ridiculous, that is exactly where government intrusion in one's private life is leading. That is true communism, when the government has total control of all of us, for our own good, of course, and we don't and won't be allowed to make any individual decisions, because that may not fit in within the great government plan.

[NittanyLion]

There is no reason why a person should have to read the ingrediants in prepared foods to see if they can survive the meal.

First, I'm sorry about your angioplasty.

As far as your comment, why should anyone other than you be responsible for your health? It seems to me it's our own responsibility to know and understand what we put in our body - that's not the government's role.

[independentmind]

Getting fat or staying slim is a personal lifestyle decision.

It may not be the government's business, but it doesn't mean that the government is wrong. Widespread obesity is not a good thing.

[Shooter 2.5]

I understand what you mean but let's say for instance there's an amount of people who are allergic to peanuts.

That would mean you would know not to eat a peanut right?

So what happens if you eat a chocolate chip cookie and two hours later, you're in the hospital with no idea how you got there. Did it mean you're allergic to Chocolate Chip cookies too?
Two weeks later, you find a report that the cookie company used peanut oil in their process. Who's to blame? Guess what? "You are." Simple because it's all your fault for not reading the fine print.


My health should not depend on reading the fine print on a food package. If that's true, I could write a contract for a house, car or any high dollar item and somewhere in the mountains of paperwork say that no matter how much you pay me, the item reverts back to me in two months. Tell me how ethical that is and who would be to blame?

[Col Sanders]

Two weeks later, you find a report that the cookie company used peanut oil in their process. Who's to blame? Guess what? "You are." Simple because it's all your fault for not reading the fine print.

No, you are to blame because if you are that freaking allergic to peanuts, you should not be stupid enough to be eating anything you didn't prepare from scratch yourself, or have verified beyond a shadow of a doubt is "peanut free".  It is reckless for you to simply pick up a pack of cookies, and with a cursory glance at the label, eat them when you know that the difference between life and death, or walking around normal and a hospital stay, is trace amount of peanut oil.

My health should not depend on reading the fine print on a food package.

Of course it should.  Manufacturers are responsible for making a good faith effort to inform you of the ingredients used in their manufacturing process.  However, you are still ultimately responsible for ensuring that it is safe for you as an individual to eat because those same manufacturers cannot foresee every problem that might ensue from the use or misuse (which is what I would call you eating that cookie) of their product.

Col Sanders

[m18436572]

A classic case of the pot calling the kettle black!

[Shooter 2.5]

The point I'm trying to make is how is anyone supposed to figure out that there would be some sort of danger to your heath in something so unrelated as a chocolate chip cookie.

The same thing happened to me and I don't have any allergies. Do you even know what Hydrogenated oil is if you weren't told? Until that article about the Oreo cookies was printed, I'll bet, unless you were a chemist or doctor, you never heard of it.

[Leisler]

Bunk.

It's the medical fad of the moment.

Some other fads taken in by dolts and dullards. Water bad, beer good. Cocaine, heroin good then bad. Meat eating, milk drinking good, then bad. Fish good, then bad, then good. Wheat allergies. Sugar as white death. Butter bad, margarine good, margarine bad. Pasta bad then good now bad. Eggs good, then bad now a little good. Salt good, now bad. Home cooking good, then bad, now good and bad.

And on and on and on.

Here is some real honest to true facts.

There is no scientific connection between salt and high blood pressure.

There is no scientific connection between blood cholesterols and hart disease.

In the last 40 years the mortality rate has remained unchanged.

Oddly, no Doctor can tell why YOU got cancer, heart disease, etc. Nor can any Doctor or scientist tell why anyone got hart disease/cancer. Nor can they tell why any 2 people did, nor 10 people, nor 1,000 or ten thousand.

Yet somehow they know.

Now, I don't know about you. But if I assemble something wear each and every part is unknown, how you get a brand spanky Cadillac out of it and it not be a big pile of medical umba-gumba witch doctorery, I don't know.

Todays Doctor is tomorrows butcher.

[tomakaze]

re:80 lbs. in what amount of time Tom?
 
Over the course of about 6 months or so.

[Shooter 2.5]

Then let's try an experiment.

Why don't you search out the hydrogenated oil foods and eat them with every meal.

Pop-tarts, Wow potato chips, and Wow Corn chips and Keebler cookies with every meal. Tell yourself with all the exercise you do, they won't hurt you.

Get back to us in a couple of years.

[P_A_I]

There is no reason why a person should have to read the ingrediants in prepared foods to see if they can survive the meal.

As far as your comment, why should anyone other than you be responsible for your health? It seems to me it's our own responsibility to know and understand what we put in our body - that's not the government's role. -- NL

My health should not depend on reading the fine print on a food package.
If that's true, I could write a contract for a house, car or any high dollar item and somewhere in the mountains of paperwork say that no matter how much you pay me, the item reverts back to me in two months. Tell me how ethical that is and who would be to blame? 66

Lion makes a valid point, which you totally ignored. The Government is not responsible for your inability to read about or understand facts about diet or about contract law.
A 'meeting of the minds' is necessary to validate a contract. Your 'high dollar' example is clearly fraud which invalidates such contracts. The state would not enforce.

Show such an intent to defraud in fine print mandatory food labeling.
In fact, the state could even be partly liable to see that the mandated label is correct.

[Shooter 2.5]

Show such an intent to defraud in fine print mandatory food labeling. In fact, the state could even be partly liable to see that the mandated label is correct.

I don't think a company would willfully put something into a food that is harmful. I do think as long as they don't know what it does, the stuff gets into the meal. Ignorance is bliss, in other words. My point which seems to be forgotten is a lot of foods are advertised as low-fat but then they put an unknown into the mix and people are under the mistaken idea they can get away with treating it without some sort of caution.

Hey, it's low fat. Now you can enjoy it without a worry. Wrong.

I already know what this garbage can do to you. No matter what the companies try to call it, it's still junk food. I'm going to start searchiing the tiny labels they put on this stuff. If you don't, that's your choice.

Why would a fine print in a contract be fraud? Isn't it your responsibility to make sure you're not cheated? I could even write it in Latin. Isn't that the same as a lay person having any idea of what Hydrogenated oil is?

[P_A_I]

Why would the fine print in a contract saying "no matter how much you pay me, the item reverts back to me in two months", -- be fraud?

"Isn't it your responsibility to make sure you're not cheated?"

Obviously, if there was a meeting of the minds as to that point of the contract, it wouldn't be fraud..

-- You just made 'Tree of Liberties' original point.. It's your responsiblity to 'see' to what you eat, not the states.

[P_A_I]

Why would the fine print in a contract saying "no matter how much you pay me, the item reverts back to me in two months", -- be fraud?

"Isn't it your responsibility to make sure you're not cheated?"

Obviously, if there was a meeting of the minds as to that point of the contract, it wouldn't be fraud..

-- You just made 'Lions' original point.. It's your responsiblity to 'see' to what you eat, not the states.
['tree of liberty' was on a different thread, sorry]

[Shooter 2.5]

Well, I did read the ingredients before. I wanted to watch my fat intact and I even looked at the cholestral count.

Now, I found out that something I had never heard of before sent me to the hospital.

My wife found a great method of losing weight. She was so proud of herself. Luckily, she wasn't on the Fen-Fen very long before the bad old government took it off the market.

By the way, that's the first time I mentioned anything about governmental intervention.

Anyway, have fun and just be careful because you need a chemist in order to find out if that cookie is OK to eat.

[Leisler]

Face it, you're cooked. You ate the cookie, the damage is done. Rest, sips of warm tap water, short walks at dusk, try not to talk to much.

[geedee]

I coulda saved them a lotta time and money and just pled guilty. Don't need a scientific study to tell me when I can't see my toes when I'm upright that something is obstructing my view. But I'm also jolly so they can kiss my fat bootie.

[Sweet_Sunflower29]

UN's World Health Organization and its Food and Agricultural Organization

ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzz.......

(works better then any bedtime story!)