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The Personal Is Political, And I'm Going To Have Another Doughnut

Aug 14, 2009
By .
Politics & Current Events

Being overweight isn't just a health problem.  It's a moral failing.

  • Seriously. The fitness of Dr. Regina Benjamin, the Obama administration's nominee for Surgeon General, has been called into question.  Not just her fitness for office.  But her fitness in general. Or rather, because Dr. Benjamin, a 53 year old African American lady who probably works 20 hour days, isn't physically fit, the argument goes that she's not fit to serve in high office.  Because the Surgeon General's job isn't to advance sound medical policy.  It's to be a role model.
  • As penance for her sins, Dr. Benjamin could seek to intervene in the "public interest" lawsuit recently filed against Denny's, accused of killing its customers with salt.
  • Meanwhile, David Frum, formerly famous as the man who brought us the Axis of Evil, now wants to bring us the Axis of Obesity. Starting with anti-fast food zoning laws as restrictive as those applied to strip clubs and gun stores, and moving on to a tax on corn syrup.
  • Speaking of fatass political pundits, as part of a comprehensive health care package Marc Ambinder of the Atlantic wants to "empower" Medicare and Medicaid to change the "obesogenic environment."  For the good of poor people, of course.   That Ambinder verses his proposals in even denser polysyllabic prose than usual indicates to me that what he really means is: fat tax and reduced insurance coverage.  But if Ambinder used those terms, poor people might understand what he meant.

This may become a continuing series.  Media demonization of the overweight and government / public-interest intrusion into people's eating habits are heavy topics, to be chewed over at length.

Last 5 posts by Patrick

11 Comments
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11 Comments

  1. Ken  •  Aug 14, 2009 @12:23 pm

    I've lost 27 pounds now. Another, say, 30 and I won't be able to be the butt of this particular joke. But it pisses me off when people think that the state needs to protect me from myself.

  2. Ezra  •  Aug 14, 2009 @1:09 pm

    I long for a return to the toned and fit days of C. Everet Koop.

  3. mojo  •  Aug 14, 2009 @1:20 pm

    Grim Reaper: Shut up, you American. You Americans, all you do is talk, and talk, and say "let me tell you something" and "I just wanna say." Well, you're dead now, so shut up.
    – The Meaning of Life

  4. Ezra  •  Aug 14, 2009 @1:33 pm

    New surgeon general announced!

    http://www.uis.edu/sangamonauditorium/family/images/Slim-photo3_000.jpg

  5. Mike  •  Aug 14, 2009 @8:25 pm

    I don't know…. I hate the Fat Police more than most…. But what if she smoked?

    She's making a lifestyle choice that is medically unhealthy.

    A fat person advertises these choices. So it'd be like if she walked around with a cigarette in her ear.

    Plus, Surgeon General is a scam position, anyway. How long did we go without one? No one seemed to notice.

    If we're going to have a face of public health, shouldn't it be a healthy face?

  6. Jag  •  Aug 15, 2009 @8:53 am

    I'm all against the fat police, but it pisses me off when I see morbidly obese people at baseball games, bar food places, etc. loading up with crap that will 100% put them in the hospital in the near future and that under Obama we will be paying for it.

    I watch them feed this crap to their already obese kids and I can't imagine what they are thinking. They are killing these kids and the rest of the country is going to have to foot the bill.

    So either regulate the morbidly obese or lay off universal healthcare, but paying for a system that is never going to fix itself is going to be as effective as the war on drugs and terror.

  7. Mike  •  Aug 15, 2009 @4:22 pm

    Making kids obese pisses me off, too. If I fed a kid a slow release poison, I'd be in jail. If I fed my kid crap, ensuring that the kid would develop Type II diabetes (which used to be called Adult Onset Diabetes until parents started killing their children with food)…. Well, that's just my prerogative as a parent and the Nanny State had better keep its hands off of my dinner table!

  8. Patrick  •  Aug 15, 2009 @6:26 pm

    No legislation, and no medicine, can cure stupid.

  9. Paul  •  Aug 17, 2009 @5:40 am

    David Frum (Frome?) is an asshat.

  10. Bob  •  Aug 17, 2009 @6:53 am

    "So either regulate the morbidly obese or lay off universal healthcare, but paying for a system that is never going to fix itself is going to be as effective as the war on drugs and terror."

    Nothing is free. Somewhere in the system, we're paying for it already, Jag.

    If they had non-emergency health-care, maybe these people would see a doctor sooner and get a needed smack upside the head. Unfortunately, that's doubtful. As Patrick noted, stupid is here to stay.

  11. Reuven Avram  •  Aug 19, 2009 @6:25 am

    I just can't help but think a Wise, Thin, white man may have some insights that a fat black woman can't offer. Can't Obama appoint one token white man?