The NYT reports today, Friday, that childhood obesity costs this country $14 billion a year and adult obesity another $147 billion. Most of this obesity is caused by eating too much unhealthy processed food with added sugar, coupled with insufficient exercise.
Ned proposes the country adopt the solution we successfully applied to BP in the GOM spill:
*demonize companies that produce unhealthy food;
* call their CEO's to testify under oath before Congress, and then berate and abuse them;
* extort money from companies producing unhealthy food to fight the obesity epidemic;
* pass laws requiring companies producing unhealthy foods to suspend their dividends until obesity rates fall back to pre-1940 levels;
* require these companies to pay for exercise programs for all obese people;
* require these companies to pay all of the health care costs arising out of eating their toxic foods.
After solving this problem, we will move on to smoking.
While we can not fault your sentiment we feel the need to point out that nothing, as in no thing, will have any effect on obesity until the people that are obese decide they no longer want to be obese. Until then, we can throw as much money as we want, we can lobby and rail and weep and plead, but until someone has a change of heart, they ain't gonna do what it will take to change.
ReplyDeleteNed deeply appreciates this thoughtful comment.
ReplyDeletePerhaps personal choice should no longer be an option. Eating what you like and what taste good has been decided by the food industry, including fast-food, for far too long. One of the issues with obesity is that cheap foods loaded with salt or sugar are the foods that are most accessible, and therefore what is eaten for daily meals.
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