When the president announced that Michelle Obama would be heading
up an anti-obesity task force last summer, most of us shrugged.
Most presidents like to send their wives off on a health-related
mission of some sort. Laura Bush worked closely with heart
disease and breast cancer charities. Nancy Reagan lectured
children on the dangers of drugs. Hillary Clinton tried to burn
down the entire American health care system.
In retrospect, we probably should have been a little more
concerned. In October, Mrs. Obama confessed that, as recently as
two years ago, Sasha’s and Malia’s meals had been chock full of
fast food and pizza. When the Obama family pediatrician told
Michelle that this wasn’t doing her daughters’ health any favors,
the First Lady’s jaw hit the table. “I was shocked,” she
said.
The same woman who was floored by the news that Wendy’s
Baconators are unhealthy was assigned to spearhead the
government’s anti-obesity policies. That probably should have set
off a few alarm bells.
Now we have the fruits of Michelle Obama’s labor, so to
speak. On May 11 the White House Task Force on Childhood
Obesity
released its official report, and it’s a
treasure trove of technocratic, finger-wagging nanny statism. The
report purports to “solve” the child obesity crisis within a
generation, and it’s not kidding around. If the government acts
on the task force’s advice, we’re about to be force-fed a
five-course meal of do-gooder collectivism.
How to crack the obesity nut? First, make Ronald McDonald a
fugitive of the health police. The report frets at length over
junk food being advertised to children. It cites a study where
preschoolers were shown a piece of broccoli and a chocolate bar.
When asked which they would rather have, 78% of the tykes chose
the candy. But when an Elmo sticker was placed on the broccoli,
28% of them shifted their votes.
Obviously then, sweeping change is needed. The report
recommends that food and beverage companies be given a chance to
more strictly regulate their commercials. Television stations are
also encouraged to lower the volume on or ban outright junk foods
ads. Then if none of that works, the FCC is to be sent in to
regulate and censor advertisements — maybe ban them outright as
with cigarette spots.
The report also recommends that food companies be forced to
display nutrition facts on the front of food packages rather than
the back. The FDA already saluted on that one and is hard at work
crafting a regulation.
Government nannies are annoying and unbearable, but their
saving grace is that they usually exist at the state level. The
worst finger-waggers are usually city mayors like New York’s
Michael Bloomberg and San Francisco’s Gavin Newsom. Consequently,
America is an awkward patchwork of nannyism with rules that
differ across state and even town lines. In Connecticut where I
used to live, all forms of alcohol were sold only at package
stores. In my new home state of Virginia, beer is available in
the checkout line at Bed, Bath, and Beyond while hard liquor is
sold exclusively at state-owned shops that resemble World War II
bunkers. It’s a strange system, but it sort of works. If I don’t
like it, I’ll always have another state to escape to, as Ronald
Reagan might have said.
The anti-obesity plan would begin to federalize the entire
food division of the nanny state. The task force recommends that
the government look into slapping national taxes on junk food and
subsidizing fruits and vegetables. The states’ initiatives, in
the First Lady’s view, haven’t succeeded in socially engineering
the people enough: “Recent research indicates that current
state-level tax rates on soda purchases have had a relatively
small impact on adolescent and adult weights. But a higher tax
rate would likely have a greater impact on consumption, as
evidenced by the effects of the substantial rise in tobacco
taxes.”
Think of it as a VAT for Dr. Pepper. The report goes on to
recommend an astonishing 70% increase in the number of fruits and
vegetables in the food supply by 2020.
Then there’s the problem of food deserts — not “desserts”
but “deserts” — and perhaps the crowning jewel of the
ridiculousness of the whole anti-obesity initiative. Food deserts
are defined as areas of the country that don’t have access to a
grocery store. The feds consider you stranded in a food desert if
you live — quoting from the report — “more than a mile from a
supermarket.”
Already, $400 million has been allotted in the president’s
upcoming budget to tackle this pressing problem by subsidizing
new grocery stores and food delivery programs. Michelle Obama
declares that she wants all food deserts eliminated in seven
years.
Woe is me, apparently. I live about three-quarters of a
mile from a grocery store, according to a quick odometer test.
But my apartment complex is literally surrounded by the forces of
darkness — 7-Eleven, Chili’s, Legal Seafoods, McDonald’s,
Subway, Dunkin Donuts, Potbelly’s, Hamburger Hamlet, Sbarro’s,
Cosi’s, Chipotle, a liquor store, and several bars. Forget
deserts, I’m living in a food post-apocalyptic hellscape.
According to the report, “Residents with better access to
supermarkets and limited access to convenience stores tend to
have healthier diets and lower levels of obesity.” And yet, I’m
very healthy and trim. What’s going on here?
After running several studies funded by a $13 billion
stimulus grant, I determined that my health is a direct result of
my self-control. According to my data, limiting portion sizes,
buying junk food in moderation, and exercising have all helped me
avoid obesity. Further, if I ever become obese, increasing these
activities on my own time will help reduce my weight to normal
levels.
Regrettably, my conclusions will probably be lost on
bean-counting government technocrats who think building a Stop
and Shop in the middle of the Everglades will solve our obesity
problem. In 120 pages of Michelle’s report, there’s almost no
mention of personal responsibility.
Instead, there’s the ghostly presence of the man behind the
curtain at the president’s regulatory Oz, Cass Sunstein. Sunstein
has theorized that people are incapable of making good decisions
on their own. Instead, they need to be “nudged” by government
regulations and incentives into choosing well. He writes, “[O]ne
thing is clear: a system of limitless individual choices with
respect to communications is not necessarily in the interest of
citizenship and self-government, and efforts to reduce the
resulting problems ought not to be rejected in freedom’s name.”
Michelle’s report would have the government commandeering those
choices to nudge people to eat healthier. It even discusses the
“choice architecture” of school cafeterias, a phrase Sunstein
coined.
This is the preferred method of the government nanny:
Rather than letting the individual clean up his own problems,
fiddle with his surrounding environment to force him to conform
to the nanny’s definition of good. If all this makes you throw up
your hands in despair, rest assured that it’s been approved by
grey suits in Washington armed with scientific studies who just
want to make you a better person. They know better than you,
after all.
