-
Donna Brazile and the Bitter Realities of Obamacare
March 1, 2013 | 158 comments
Another Perspective
Big Government and Big Business: A Heart Attack Waiting to Happen
When it comes to American obesity, government is once again part of the problem rather than the solution.
A new study on obesity in America entitled “F is for Fat” by Trust For America’s Health, made headlines across the country. It found Americans are fatter than ever. Two-thirds of American adults and 25 million American children are now overweight or obese. This level of unhealthy living has severe repercussions in regards to health care costs and overall national welfare.
Liberals across the country were shouting for more government regulation of the market as the solution, but the government’s push to make a carrot as appealing as a cookie is having the same record of success as the “War Against Poverty.” What liberals don’t understand about America’s obesity problem is that the government is the facilitator. The unholy alliance between big business and big government is killing America.
The food industry received from 1995 to 2005 more than $5 billion in federal subsidies annually. The breakdown is this: 73.8 percent of the subsidies go to the meat and dairy industry, 13.2 percent are to grains, 10.7 percent to starch, sugar, oil and alcohol, nuts, fruits and vegetables make up a whopping 2.2 percent. Between subsidies and the technological and pharmaceutical developments over the last several decades, the process of producing meats, eggs, starch, sugar and corn based products such as high-fructose corn syrup have been made cheaper, and as a consequence food is unhealthier.
Bad food has now become cheap, super-sized, pharmaceutically enhanced, and terrible for your body. Cheap beef made from factory farming that receive the benefits of federal subsidies as well as brilliant marketing campaigns is partly the reason the fast food industry grew from $6 in 1970 to $110 billion in 2000. As comedian George Carlin once said, “Americans are fatally attracted to the slow death by fast food.”
Food subsidies make up only part of the government’s responsibility in America’s obesity problem. Obesity due to poor diet habits can also be linked to the death of the small farm. Small farms for the majority of our nation’s history held the key to sustainable food production, local culture and a healthy diet.
Since the 1930s, however ,small family farms have been on the decline, and many of these reasons are clearly directed at government intervention in the market. The wartime draft, inflation in the 1970s and '80s but most of all the regulations created by the FDA and USDA, which are destructive to small farms while only a minor inconvenience to Big Agriculture, which has the money, lawyers and lobbyists to deal with any government conflicts.
This destruction of the local food economy has created what Eliza Sutton, MPH describes in her study “Obesity, Poverty, and the Case for Community Supported Agriculture in New York State”, food insecurity. Where many low income neighborhoods in multiple cities have greater access to fast food or other foods that are energy dense composed more of added sugars and refined grains than fresh produce. Sutton makes the argument at the end of her study that Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) can make a huge difference in getting the poorest Americans access to healthy foods.
CSA has exploded in the last few years, from fewer than 100 in the early 1990s to close to 1,500 according to the New York Times. To many sociologists who aren’t hell bent on wealth redistribution, CSA may be a free market answer to America’s growing health epidemic.
That is until 2009 when President Obama signed into law the Food Safety and Modernization Act. The bill was in response to Big Agriculture’s reckless food production, which caused an e-coli breakout throughout the US. It expands the FDA’s authority over both processed food and fresh fruits and vegetables on all farms that make more than $500,000. It was lobbied for by Kellogg and Grocery Manufactures of America and was opposed by local food enthusiasts like the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition and The Farm-to-Consume Legal Defense Fund. While it seems a necessary evil for larger expansion of government agencies to protect the safety of American’s food, the new law is another case of a Big Government and Big Business in cahoots. As Tim Carney of the Washington Examiner writes of the law, “This is big government: It trashes traditional ways and local, small business in favor of one-size-fits-all rules that prop up the big guys… Obama’s legislative agenda really serves the companies with the best lobbyists.”
Government is obviously not the only reason for
America’s bulging waistlines. There are cultural, lifestyle, and
economic factors that are rooted in personal choice and the private
sector as well.
But more government is not needed. Freedom to grow, freedom to sell and freedom to eat locally without the intense intervention from Washington may be the only solutions. The only way Americans as a whole may be able to go on a diet is if they put Washington on a diet first.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (44) | Leave a comment
More Articles by Ryan James Girdusky
More Articles From Another Perspective
http://spectator.org/archives/2011/07/15/big-government-and-big-busines
Follow us:
ADVERTISEMENT
SPONSORED LINKS
FLASHBACK TO: 1995
-
Pope Culture
A man of faith in a godless age is hitting Americans where it hurts.
-
Why the GOP Does Not, Like, Totally Suck
Mr. and Mrs. American Spectator Reader, let P.J. O’Rourke talk sense to your kids.
-
Dames at Sea
-
In the Absence of Guns
In Britain, defending your property can get you life.
-
The Metaphysical Martini
-
Counting the Costs of Clintonism
The debacle of this president’s administration is both a cause and a symptom of the decline of American values. Unless Congress impeaches him, that decline will go on unchecked. An eminent jurist surveys the damage and assesses the chances for the recovery of our culture.
-
Chuck McHagel
It won’t take long for conservatives to scratch this presidential wannabe off their 2008 scorecard.
-
The Legacy of Old John and Mother Fresh-Roasted
-
It’s the Best Time of the Year
The American Christmas, like the songs that celebrate it, makes room for everybody under the rainbow. Is that why so many people seem to be hostile to it?
-
The Bush Crack-Up
Was the President done in by the economy, or by the politics of the economy?
Clip of the Day
H/T to National Review Online
ADVERTISEMENT
Shamus| 7.15.11 @ 6:41AM
With worries about spreading obesity, declining schools, and outlandish spending, perhaps the US should change its slogan from "land of the free and home of the brave" to "fat, dumb, and happy".
The Al| 7.15.11 @ 12:04PM
The eternal wisdom of Animal House...
"Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life son."
Have you considered| 7.15.11 @ 1:19PM
I agree with several of Mr. Gurdusky's points, but I would add this point.
Cooking has become a lost art, and it is time consuming, both in terms of developing your shopping list, then going to the grocery, to actually slaving over the hot stove every day.
I cook daily even after a hard day's work. My reasons are two fold. 1) it is less expensive than going out for a sit down meal, and 2) what I make tastes better than most things I can find on any menu. I actually have a very lean pork loin in an onion braise on the stove right this minute...yum :)
I cook healthy, low fat, well balanced meals heavy on the veggies. My ex actually said "wow, I didn't know health food could taste so good" I told him it was not health food, (I don't like tofu or sprouts) but that it was normal food prepared in a healthy way. He being a devout carnivore, did not much care for chicken. A condition many men share. I changed that preference, and I use boneless/skinless breasts 99.8% of the time, and typically feature chicken 4 times a week, with zero complaints.
By using various spices and methods, like curry over rice, or hot wing sauces, or sweet & sour, I can switch it up, and please the taste buds.
I can put a spread on the table for 4, which costs less than 1 sit down meal out, but again it takes time, effort and some talent to do so.
masly | 7.18.11 @ 1:40AM
A simple way to get kids thin is to have them ride bicycles and play in parks rather than play video games. I was a very skinny kid, and my neighborhood was safe in the 1960s in suburban Chicago. I ran and rode bikes and skated. My kids can do these things, too, but I live out in the boonies to allow it.
I am a 28 years old doctor, mature and beautiful.and now I am seeking a good man who can give me real love , so i got a username Andromeda2002 on--s'e'ek'c'ou'ga'r.c óm--.it is the first and best club for y'ounger women and old'er men, or older women and y'ounger men,to int'eract with each other. Maybe you wanna ch'eck 'it out or tell your friends!
Alan Brooks| 7.15.11 @ 4:44PM
But why the photo of a trim Obama eating a sandwich? you guys really don't love him, do you?
Obama's portrait isn't on your must-buy list, eh?
Claypoole| 7.16.11 @ 4:18PM
Obama may be trim--heavy smokers often are--but his wife has a rear end and thighs the size of Montana----and she's telling us how and what to eat?
chuck| 7.15.11 @ 6:58AM
End all subsidies to the food industry. State and local control over local producers, and the federal government can control and regulate the large producers the ship country-wide. This would allow people to buy locally-produced foods without the interference of the federal government.
TrueBlue| 7.18.11 @ 5:51PM
Thing is, the federal government isn't supposed to be messing with local stuff anyway, but I agree, get rid of subsidies. All those do is prop up the farms/ranches that are unable to effectively manage themselves, while pushing down the people who actually grow quality goods.
My personal "favorite" government subsidies are the ones to "organic" farms and ranches. The farms actually use more pesticides than your standard farm, but they dilute it down to a level that meets federal requirements for organic farms, and then spray 4-5 times as often (crop dusters love these guys).
Ranches that produce organic beef actually tend to be disease ridden since they don't bother to vaccinate their cattle, thus making their actual beef production lower, and raising the risks involved with eating their meats. The best part is, the only "steroids" that most of your standard ranches use are vaccinations, the majority don't use ANY growth hormones, contrary to popular belief thanks to pro-organic supporters.
The only thing government subsidies does it make it so that companies that are run correctly have to get by barely making a profit in order to compete price-wise with subsidized business, while the subsidized companies can actually be in the red and use the government funds to prop themselves up.
POST American| 7.15.11 @ 7:51AM
----'80's Show' formulation and DIS-traction
ALERT!
FACT IS, through Freemasonry, and certainly
the freemasonry of NGO's and those ever sinister,
EUGENICS and GENOICIDE culpable
'benny violent' capstone foundations ---Big
government IS Big Business.
Understand, a kind of 'So--shall---ALLL--ism'
is being swiftly brought in the manage the world
on behalf of a deeply entrenched, long inbred,
highly exclusive, utterly psychopathic elite.
REALLY
Get a load of the architechture going up.
It's nothing but disposability and EUGENICS.
Lullabys, Legends and Lies| 7.15.11 @ 8:37AM
Umm, what? And what does that have to do with Old MacDonald? Ee i ee i oh Boy!!
Alan Brooks| 7.15.11 @ 4:46PM
Dee See/PostAmerican is in a constant state of HYSTERIA.
chuck| 7.15.11 @ 8:01PM
Looks like DeeSee is back as Post American. Can't we get rid of him again, please?
Von Mises Jr.| 7.15.11 @ 8:29AM
Command and control government causes food insecurity. Whether it is due to price controls or used by a weapon against the people, food shortages happened in Soviet Russia, During FDR's regime, and now in tyrannical dictatorships in the Middle East. Government and agriculture in cahoots eqquals starvation and unrest.
Gary B| 7.16.11 @ 3:59AM
Yes it does.
C. S. P. Schofield| 7.15.11 @ 8:43AM
1) It has been my impression that at least some of the 'alarming rise in obesity' has its origins in a recent change in the definition of obesity. I'm not sure how much, but it bears looking into.
2) So, we are a society whose primary dietary problem is that the common man is, on average, too fat? Is nobody celebrating?
Kevin Compton| 7.15.11 @ 10:25AM
I also think that the term "obese" is used incorrectly. As measured by the BMI, Body Mass Index, nearly every professional NFL player and most NHL players, as well as a great many MLB and NBA players would be considered "obese". Muscle mass is not taken into consideration on that index.
MBD| 7.15.11 @ 3:20PM
Your assumption is correct. In 1985, the National Institute of Health established as a standard that males with a BMI in excess of 27.3 and females with a BMI in excess of 27.8 were 'overweight. In 1999, after the World Health Organization adopted a standard of a BMI of 25 as overweight, the NIH followed suit (25BMI- overweight; 30 BMI-obese). Any study prior to 1999 that used the 1985 standard will naturally show a smaller percentage of subjects as overweight than those studies using the current standard. In detecting trends, it is essential that the same standard be used for all time frames. Unfortunately, many of the claims that an increasing percentage of the population is overweight cite a comparison between the the findings of pre-1999 studies using the 1985 standard with more recent studies using the current standards. NIH sponsored research shows that the rate of increase in overweight population has been flat since 2002-2003.
LMajito| 7.15.11 @ 8:43AM
yep...during the summer months my wife loves to grow her tomatoes and my teenaged son loves to partake of them...but i ask her not to put any chemicals in the soil...only organic compost...yes they're smaller and one has to be on top to prevent insects (and birds) to mess with them, but when you slice one of those red (redden by the sunlight not some chemical in a semi-trailor) veggies the aroma that fills the kitchen is heavenly...
i'm totally in agreement that small farms should be part of the answer to obesity and bring back the recess and pe programs in schools...my kids sit from 7:30 - 3:30 pm with only the 2o minute lunch break and run madness between classes...no wonder they come home tired...tired of seating all day with no true physical activities...this when the human body is full of energy and desire to move...
one more thing...those big cities planners and urban developments approvers, require builders to build side walks...look at houston...most of the city is without sidewalks...what idiots that think because a neighborhood lack sidewalks somehow the houses in there appear as 'estates'...
big government/business = dumb thinking
Louis Jenkins| 7.15.11 @ 8:59AM
Yesterday I stopped for a moment in a parking lot to observe the weight of individuals going into Hardees. All, yes, all, were greatly overweight. And it was only lunch time. While government can regulate it is the individual's choice. And we see what the individuals are choosing.
Aiken Bob| 7.15.11 @ 9:53AM
it would be interesting to see if this obesity crisis tracks the rise in fatherless households. My gut keeps telling me the traditional values are best taught in the old traditional family. Face it, obesity is a gross (sorry for pun) insult for respect of your own body.
Michael Crites| 7.15.11 @ 10:11AM
"Bad food has now become cheap" Nah, all food has become cheap.
If you want to know why Americans have become "fatter," I believe it's simple economics. Just in the last 50 or so years, the cost of food has dropped more than 50%. In 1960, the typical family spent more that 20% of its disposable income on food - today it's less than 10%. Food is cheap so people consume more of it. I'd bet that if one were to look into the cost of food in other, "thinner" countries you'd find that the cost is significantly higher (eg. Tanzania at 74%). It's simply basic economics. And it's none of the government's business ... unless we give them control of our healthcare.
Who Knows?| 7.15.11 @ 10:13AM
The bottom line reason so many people are fat or disgustingly fat, or in PC words, “overweight” or “obese”, is that they EAT TOO DAMN MUCH!
This article, that correctly connects big government and big business as a cause of this “gross epidemic”, is certainly not the whole story, though, IMHO.
Maybe we can fetch from our memory banks a Dick “toe sucker” Morris take on Slick Willie---remember “Because he can”?
Oh, so many clichés clamor to be applied!
“Idle hands are the devil’s play thing.”
“You only go round once in life, so go for the gusto!”
“Carpe diem!”
Despite superficial analyses, which try to affix blame on “others”, the simple truth is that whoever is fat or disgustingly fat did it themselves. It was THEIR hands that gripped the forks and spoons, which shoveled the “food” into their mouth!
In our oh-so-highly “evolved” times, however, people wonder “why” this is the case, and like Freudian analysts, seek some underlying psychological “cause” from their past.
Well, if one wants to go this route, I think we might notice that ADVERTISING works!
It took quite a while to wake people up to the suicidal results of Pavlovian Marlboro Man “bells”, which used to “ring” in all the media, back in the day.
Imagine how long it’s going to take for “Ronald McDonald” et al to be totally exposed, AND relegated to the ash heap of history, so that there MIGHT BE a reversal in the percentages of fat and disgustingly fat people!
As for RIGHT NOW, my recommendation is to NOT feel sorry for the majority of Americans who’ve CHOSEN to be so gross. They are NOT victims!
Or, I should write, two thirds of YOU, who might read this, given the probabilities, are NOT to be denigrated for being scale busters.
It’s EXACTLY what you created, bite by bite.
Be happy, as you ARE!
However, if you are past denial, and all the other attitudes about your impending death, and have had enough---literally, even---just stop stuffing the body with CRAP!
Take it from this lean old fart; it is possible to consciously, over time, change old patterns of diet. Indeed, another cliché seems perfect for our sad (standard American diet) times—
“When I was a child, I acted as a child. When I grew up, I put aside childish things.”
Yes---the aggregated sum of Americans who are fat or disgustingly fat have been acting out their---your?—childishness, unto an early and painful death.
Grow up (not OUT!), conservatives!
I’ll end this food rant with the best health advice I can share---
Always under-eat the best foods!
A final---for NOW---point:
Since 1870, as the WSJ noted the other day---read Dan Henninger---the American economy has enjoyed an average of 2% annual growth.
Just so, each of us CAN, as the years ineluctably pass by, strive to enjoy an even greater percentage of “growth” in consciousness of how to eat---AND regularly change our diet for the better.
If one does this, life can bring amazing surprises---as this body approaches 70, for example, every time a wonderful salad arises from non-idle hands, an old memory of the not so distant past when salads were rarely eaten comes up.
Just to chew a carrot can pluck the memory of when I hated them!
Change CAN be good.
Change comes, though, one CHOSEN way or the other.
Mark Steyn “owns” the insight about how demographics is steadily CHANGING the makeup of humanity, especially in Europe.
Well, the FAT and DISGUSTINGLY FAT ongoing state of humanity, in particular in the USA, could be THE hidden demographic statistic that is killing us!
Hillel| 7.15.11 @ 10:17AM
Most of the facts in this article are non facts. If you look at the standards of 100 years ago you'd notice that the rich and the urban were over weight. Look at portraits and photos (Look at the President Taft and Clevland figures.) Appreciate that the chorines at music halls were known as "The Beef Trust."
With globalization every one feeds every one. Sure your summer tomatoes are great but what do you eat in February? I remember before frozen food. Cabbage, Turnip and Potatoes. Yuck
USSAlabama| 7.15.11 @ 10:20AM
"Food Inc" defines the chain of government corruption of food supply very succinctly.
Watch it.
I've been a practicing member of the CR Society (Calorie Restriction Society) for a decade. We often use studies in making decisions in what to include or exclude from our diets. One of the first criteria for excluding a study is whether it was done by a lobby/industry interest.
There is no human requirement for grains. The appearance of grains as a 'food group' as well as dairy was driven by the Dept. of Agriculture, and now lobbies.
Don't be surprised to see salt prices reach those of sugar, or maybe the government will have us purchase our salt by Rx . (I will not go in to studies providing no evidence of it harming us.)
Truncheon| 7.15.11 @ 12:34PM
Human beings are omnivores, and we didn't arrive at the top of the food chain by being particularly sensitive in our dietary requirements.
I reject the totality of assumptions and premises in this article, with the exception of a shared disgust at government subsidy of industry. Food or other....
When an author employs the term "epidemic" to describe the situation in which fat folks have exceeded his personal preference, there is no further use in reading or taking seriously his output.
Dave Williams| 7.15.11 @ 1:09PM
Grow your own food, bake your own bread, go easy on the sugar and starches, exercise daily, and tell Big Food to go piss up a rope.
Gary B| 7.16.11 @ 4:02AM
Simple recipe. I like it.
Mike Hawk| 7.15.11 @ 1:15PM
Alexis de Toqueville in the 1840s noticed that Americans were generally well fed and even fat... even by the standards of the day anyway. Some things never change. Most of the fatties of today were not a few years ago, but then the gummint changed the definitions again. I went from slightly overweight to fat overnight without gaining an oz. (Join Mark Levin's group. Fatties United or FU, listen to his program to get details.)
Moochelle my butt should pay attention to her own big derriere. Q " Barack, does this oufit make my butt look big??" Ans. " Yes, dear, because it is. You better quit the frnch fries and fat balls." Retort, "Shut up you dummy. No more chili dogs and burgers for you.!"
DaveD| 7.16.11 @ 9:28PM
Pfui. Every husband, even Obama, instinctively knows the correct answer to "does this oufit make my butt look big?"
Pat| 7.15.11 @ 1:23PM
The recent good news is the Great Recession is gaining fresh momentum, unemployment is rising, the Federal Reserve just found out our nation’s credit score is 39.6 according to Credit Report dot Com, President Obama sadly feels the need to raise your taxes and the real estate market is 5 years away from even a modest recovery. The bad news is the government wants to take over managing your weight. Jenny Craig, Dr. Atkins and Weight Watchers have a new and very serious competitor - the Federal Bureau of Weight Management - gifted with a $12 billion a year budget and the need to quickly hire 6,000 civil service employees. With everything else the federal government does right, maybe it’s time to federalize weight loss programs because the private sector is clearly inadequate to serve our nation’s health – be afraid Jenny Craig, be very afraid.
And one of the best ideas to come out of the new BWM agency, according to Ms. Buffy Thinly, Obama’s recently appointed Secretary of Diet, is to launch surprise raids on Wal-Mart stores. Specially trained federal Fat Finders will rush your nearest Wal-Mart in order to measure your butt.
Government scientists have developed accurate ratios measuring several obesity indicators, height to butt width, weight to butt width, annual after tax income to butt width. By using these charts on Wal-Mart customers, field agents can readily identify those Americans whose butts fall outside the legally allowed personal obesity index, known colloquially as the “butt ratio”.
Those in violation will be ticketed and fined according to the degree of index variance observed on your individual butt – in many ways, like a speeding ticket in California where the faster the speed, the larger the fine. Minorities, those with low incomes, the culturally disadvantaged and all illegal immigrants will be eligible for certain federal assistance programs in order to pay their fines.
Why raid only Wal-Mart stores and not Sears, Targets or Saks 5th Avenue? Obama’s friends in the legal profession were shocked with the ease Wal-Mart was able to avoid their recent class action suit and the highly anticipated multi-billion dollar settlement. Clearly this giant corporation is doing something illegal, the problem is finding the best way to demonstrate that fact to Americans. And according to Secretary Thinly, the elite Fat Finder commandos will reveal Wal-Mart’s complicity in the present overeating epidemic. So, if your butt is presently wider than your shopping cart, hire a skinny illegal immigrant to do your shopping, might save some personal embarrassment on your part and the illegal can certainly use the extra money.
Stupor Mundi| 7.15.11 @ 8:10PM
Do these regulations makes my butt look fat?
lost| 7.15.11 @ 2:59PM
So how do they determine what is overweight? If they use the BMI then the study is wrong. According to the BMI I am over weight. I am 6'3" and according to the BMI I should weight 177. Sorry but that is an unhealthy weight for me. I was at 186 2 years ago and I looked like I was anorexic. I weigh 205 now, do not have a gut and have a 34" waist. Most people think I still I am too thin and weight much less. Eating healthy food will not make America thin, getting off our behinds will.
Purpleguy| 7.15.11 @ 3:11PM
Of all the things to complain about government oversight and involvement, food safety should not be one of them. The "Government is the problem" mantra should have died with Reagan. What the Republicans do with government IS really a problem. Have you heard about the new Abortion laws in Kansas? Talk about Big Government to complain about. This is a weak argument, like we don't want safe food, water and air.
chuck| 7.16.11 @ 9:37PM
The government IS the problem. The Republicans got booted in 2006 and 2008 because they lost their way, and became big-government Democrats-lite. Government is too large, too intrusive, and takes too much money from the private sector. It is bankrupting the country. In good times, and bad times, and everything in between, government grows. When does it stop?
TPSW| 7.15.11 @ 5:40PM
The government involvement initiating the obesity epidemic was the McGovern commission that created the USDA recommendations. Built on a fallacy pushed by industrial agricultural producers. Trace the timelines correlations between the introduction of the guidelines in 1977 and the rise in obesity, especially childhood obesity. It is sad what bad guidance from the government can do to a nation.
The answer is in this article, eat foods that are REAL, preferably ones that are raised responsibly and humanely.
Tom of the Missouri| 7.16.11 @ 6:30PM
TPSW seems to be the only poster here who has a clue and he is only partially right. Like he says the obesity epidemic has everything to do with the McGovern commission which was the beginning of the govt. involvement in telling us what to eat. The recommendations of that committee were based upon a political compromise of the various big agriculture lobbies and had little or nothing to do with science. The cause was them recommending sugar and carbs and labeling meat and fat bad. His part about the "REAL" and "humane" food, while they may be good food, have nothing to do with the obesity epidemic and are not the solution because on a large scale they are not likely even possible economically or otherwise. It is so sad that almost no one knows the truth about this issue including apparently the author of this piece.
Jack London| 7.17.11 @ 11:58AM
They certainly haven't been recommending more sugar - quite the reverse. The carb intake is certainly a problem as is excessive sugar - but basically we just eat too little fresh fruit and vegetables, eat too much fatty food still and get too little exercise. The imbalance between food industry marketing vs sensible eating guidelines has long been massive, as it was with cigarettes.
Jack London| 7.17.11 @ 2:24PM
And by the way it's good to see an article here railing against big capitalism and how it's bought, lobbied and bullied its way to dominating the food industry.
Bob Grant| 7.15.11 @ 8:09PM
If someone mentions Food Deserts regarding poor nutrition and diabetes, I'm going to throw up the Hostess Twinkie I just enjoyed before posting.
Food Desert is on par with Play Date as the most annoying and meaningless phrases.
Plenty of inexpensive healthy choices even in the sparsest of grocery stores. It just takes discipline and common sense.
Michelle Obama wants more Whole Food Marts in areas of cities where there is no market for them. What? Is the government going to subsidize WFM for establishing stores and offer foods at artificially low prices in these areas?
POST American| 7.16.11 @ 12:33AM
AGAIN-----
with the Globalisation and RED China TREASON
op in high gear
-with 50 miles of Idaho becoming RED Chinese
sovereign territory (the first of several)
-with the ever more fishy Fukishima world
nuclear disaster being covered-up by freemasonic
world media (now being openly spoken of
among the British med establishment as
'clearly a world depop op' ---see Timoth Busby)
-with the Rockefeller/Ford 'benny violent'
foundations finishing off their TAX FREE,
lavishly funded destruction of American, indeed,
of any genuine culture worldwide
-with the same MASSIVELY funding 'La Raza'
and 'Reconquista' ---along with their 'on board'
friends at FOX Newscorp funding 'Machete'
-with 1.5 quadrillion in FAKE derivatives debt
(NEVER mentioned in A.S.) ---and the deadly
ILLEGAL 'Federal' Reserve ---on and on and on
WHY'S everyone such a quivering, programmed
little school girl? ---a little giggle-creep? ---gossiping about triviality?
STOP watching playoffs and porn in your
Auntie's basement -----IT'S HERO TIME.
swan song| 7.16.11 @ 2:50AM
They are doing the same thing with BMI as they have done over the past 20 years with cholesterol. Moving the goalposts.
We are fat (if we are) because hardly anything we do anymore requires any caloric output.
We are also fat because we eat out a lot. Restaurants "over-portion" to justify menu prices. People eat it all to justify having gone out for dinner.
In 1955 if you wanted to change the channel on your TV, you had to haul out of your easy chair and walk across the room to the TV. When you wanted your car out of garage, you yanked up a double door with muscle power. The housewife was forever fighting waxy build-up on her kitchen floor - but then they invented vinyl, leaving her with half a day to loll in a deck chair working on her tan - - that is, until they invented sun screen. Think about it, you don't see Johnson's Wax in the grocery store anymore. You see a lot of sun screen.
Before long here comes Gloria Steinem telling that housewife she is trapped and she better get herself a job so she can sit at a desk all day instead of running after her children and hanging her clothes on the line. Oh, I skipped a step - she had already been liberated from that chore by the clothes dryer.And she doesn't have to stand at the sink anymore washing dishes, she can push a button and walk away.
Husband doesn't have to push a lawn mower.He has gas or electric - doesn't have to edge the lawn on his hands and knees - has a weed whacker and doesn't use lopping shears - everything has a battery. Or if he is really smart, he doesn't even have a lawn - or has a gardener if he does.
The golfer evolved from walking the course, lugging his golf bag to getting a bag with wheels, and on to getting a cart so he could ride and not push the thing with wheels.
Children don't (can't) walk to school as they once did. When they get home, they don't go out to play. They go to their computer and play or text their friends until dinner time.
Beating the hell out of a manual typewriter expended a lot more calories back in the Stone Age before the IBM Selectric, which made a typist think she had died and gone to heaven! Who knew we would ever have computers? But then, how many computer users know we ever had ever a manual typewriter? David McCullough, I understand, still uses a manual. That is the true definition of masochist.
With her personal trainer and executive chef, the callipygian Michelle Obama has not managed to do anything about that caboose she could carry a laundry basket on. She can tone the hell out of those upper arms but she can't camouflage that butt. Those funny gored skirts don't do it! Heredity holds the trump card.
The Clintidote| 7.16.11 @ 7:27PM
We are well past the time to just ignore Big Stupid Government's rules and regulations - it's very obvious most of them are created to satisfy payoffs from one special interest or another, and those special interests have the money to pass more if we manage to get a few repealed by expending a disproportional amount of OUR money and time.
F'em. Don't let anybody who could only get a government job try to run your life.
Occam's Tool| 7.17.11 @ 7:56PM
A simple way to get kids thin is to have them ride bicycles and play in parks rather than play video games. I was a very skinny kid, and my neighborhood was safe in the 1960s in suburban Chicago. I ran and rode bikes and skated. My kids can do these things, too, but I live out in the boonies to allow it.
LibertyShovel | 7.23.11 @ 3:31AM
Indeed, all subsidies should be eliminated (and not just from the food industry). But I disagree with this article in what it purports to be the causes of dietary fat. It's not the fast-food industry, per se, it's not the GMO's, it's not that people eat too much (meaning no willpower) and I don't think that poor diets are linked to the death of the small farm. Obesity, diabetes, heart-disease, and a host of other "diseases of civilization" are attributed to one thing predominately: excessive consumption of carbohydrate. Be it in the form of colas, or refined flour (both of which were invented in the late 1800's), wheat bread, oats, HFCS, honey, or fructose, westerners simply consume too many carbs. Your body doesn't know the difference between two slices of bread and a snickers bar. The glycemic index of wheat bread is 71, pure table sugar is 100. Turns out the studies from the 1950's-1970's about the cholesterol-saturated fat hypothesis are ambiguous at best, parroted by the media, sanctioned by the government, which morphed it into pure dogma. I encourage people to have a look at the book, Good Calories Bad Caloires, by Gary Taubes, or his website (below).
A few of the comments have touched upon this and the role of government and agribusiness, in developing "Dietary needs for America" pushed by George McGovern and congress premature of the emerging science. Some of you may not like this, but Atkins was right (and no, he didn't die of a heart attack).
To challenge your thinking, please visit the following:
http://www.garytaubes.com/blog/
http://www.fathead-movie.com/