New Law Seeks To Reduce Obesity

AP ^ | 21 September 2002 | AP

[Asmodeus]

(Albany-AP, September 21, 2002) — Low fat New Yorkers might be healthier for the state budget. This week, the governor signed the Obesity Prevention Act into law. It asks the Health Department to find ways to help New Yorkers get healthier, reduce obesity and cut the cost to the state.

Officials say two out of every ten New Yorkers, more than three million people, are obese. It's the second leading cause of preventable death after smoking, and causes illnesses from diabetes to some cancers.

The American Obesity Association says the cost of obesity to public health systems across the nation is $100 billion a year.

Fifteen other states have passed legislation on everything from childhood obesity to health awareness campaigns.

The state Health Department is expected to report its findings next June. Then legislators will put together a plan to help New Yorkers deal with their expanding waist lines.

[Eowyn-of-Rohan]

" what other people eat is none of your damned business. "

But their fatness affects my health and raises my taxes...my blood pressure goes up when I am forced to sit next to one on an airplane, and the excess trash and garbage they generate puts a disproportionate strain on our garbage dumps

[philetus]

All New Yorkers should be doing whatever it takes to get this law repealed.
This is aimed at destroying the fast food industry.
If this keeps up you won't be able to buy a "deep fried Twinkie" at the fair anymore.

Picture the only fast food available: Official N.Y. State Rice Cake Drivethrough.

[Eowyn-of-Rohan]

Could food ration stamps be issued to them, so they are only able to buy a certain amount per month?

[martin_fierro]

Meet the Ideal.

[freeeee]

But their fatness affects my health and raises my taxes

It doesn't affect your health.

And when given the choice between fighting taxes or micromanaging people's lives, you choose the latter.

Why is that?

[LS]

Exactly right. They could NOT come after food, autos, etc. right off the bat, so they started with the hated smoking. I was never a smoker, but it's almost enough to make me start. Are we going to have "calorie nazis?"

[Eowyn-of-Rohan]

Are you nuts? I am trying to illustrate a parallel with the anti-smoking Nazis

[freeeee]

Sorry, the nanny types are so far out there, they can easily be mistaken for 'devils advocate' types.

[Cicero]

The cost benefits of attacking smoking and obesity are a bunch of eye-wash. It costs just as much to hospitalize someone who dies at 70 as someone who dies at 40 or 50. It's unfortunate for them, but it doesn't necessarily add to the cost of everyone's insurance or taxes.

If someone is prevented from dying of lung cancer, then they'll die a little later of something else. Or maybe they'll contract something really expensive, like kidney failure or AIDS.

So, there may be arguments for good health, but public health costs isn't a legitimate one.

Liberals hate to admit it, but in the end, everyone dies. So far, at least.

[NautiNurse]

Hate to be such a cynic in this case, but I have little hope that common sense will prevail in a state where vagabond Hitlery was elected to the U.S. senate.

[Eowyn-of-Rohan]

"the nanny types are so far out there, they can easily be mistaken for 'devils advocate' types"

The nannys drive me nuts too. Every whine they come up with could be altered to attack any group. No one stands up to them. We have a local Walgreens that is carding EVERYONE who asks for a pack of cigarettes...a 72-year old lady was carded last week for trying to buy a cigar for her husband.

[Asmodeus]

Searchable 1984 online.

[tcostell]

If they are going to make being obese illegal I'm going to start lobbying for a law to ban idiocy.

My guess is the irony will be utterly wasted on the NYS legislature.

[freeeee]

a 72-year old lady was carded last week for trying to buy a cigar for her husband.

I'll never forget seeing an ancient man, leaning on a cane, being turned down for a single beer at a hockey game because he didn't have proper ID.

[freeeee]

Thanks for the link.

[Eowyn-of-Rohan]

Start working on a list of ways that idiots affect public health (your own in particular), and place additional burdens on our economy. Why stop there? Make a similar list for politicians (oops--same thing)

[BluesDuke]

How about New York instead passing a law banning obesity in the state's government? For that matter, how about Washington passing a law banning obesity in the federal government? I do believe the proper dietary coordinates are found in the Constitution...

Oops! Forgot. Government's allowed to get as fat as it damn well pleases. And we're allowed to shut up and deal with it.

The road to Damnocratic hell is paved with Republican't good intentions...

[Eowyn-of-Rohan]

Fools, or peons on power trips. I probably would have given him my beer.

[YoungKentuckyConservative]

This is not "nanny" legislation, folks. It's a deliberate attack on our free enterprise capitalistic system, our industries, our freedoms, and our way of life. Laugh it off at the cost of all you hold dear.

Yes! It's another way to break the capitalist economy down another notch and also bring "more" money into the government's hands for their choice of redistribution (or laundering). It's one more step toward that totalitarian regime the elite would love to control.

Unfortunately, I've got a feeling this will go through just like it did with the Tobacco industry. We've already elected too many "rats" and we aren't doing anything as a people to get them out of office. I doubt much will change as the decline and fall of the Roman Empire....I mean United States......continues. How sad it is that I have to watch it during my lifetime and pass it on to my children. I keep looking for a movement to stop the cycle, and I just don't see one.

[breakem]

Video Cameras everywhere

More and more people wanting government reparations

Governmental attacks on personal vices

Politispeak

Need a sequel to 1984, 2004