It's For The Kids ... But Which Kids?

The American Thinker has a good read about how the government's war on obesity is affecting kids. Here's a sample of the article, written by William Sullivan:

“It is now accepted far and wide that fat people are a menace to their own personal health, and to the American progressive, they are a menace to society as they seek to communalize health care delivery in this country. So progressives unconsciously offer their socialistic panacea. They advise that the government be given control to influence individual choice in order to quell the obesity 'epidemic' via specified taxation upon unhealthy foods, while subsidizing healthy foods, health education, and fitness programs.

“That may be all well and good to ensure that adults begin altering their lifestyles to reflect the state's health standards, but children are another story.”

The article, which I recommend that you read here, goes on to discuss recent cases in which authorities have taken extremely obese children away from their homes. Not only are the children temporarily separated from their families, but their parents often come under social condemnation.

We're constantly told that nanny-state measures are “for the kids,” but obese kids and their families will be harmed by the state's overreaching war against obesity. 

(Hat tip to Tell the Food Police, Back Off ~ Ronald McDonald Stays)

Let's Not Dough-verreact

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recently released a report on a 2009 e-coli outbreak caused by ready-to-bake cookie dough (perhaps some of the overeager bakers confused 'ready-to-bake' for 'ready-to-eat'). Apparently, it was untreated flour rather than eggs that made about 80 people sick.

According to TheAtlantic.com, "The report released by the CDC arrived at two important conclusions: One is that companies that manufacture cookie dough should reformulate their product and make it as safe to eat as a ready-to-eat product. And two, that consumers need more effective education about the hazards of consuming unbaked products."

"More effective education," huh? My mom taught me not to eat raw cookie dough when I was a kid (I may have had my fingers in the bowl at the time). Must every unfortunate incident become an occasion for more government "education"? I don't have much confidence that the government can give people common sense. As this editorial in the Kansas City Star argues, even with better consumer education, "chances are a lot of people will live dangerously and sample the stuff anyway."

(Photo: aresauburn™/Flickr)

Top 10 Posts of 2011

Starting a blog is such an early-2000s thing to do, but this was nevertheless the first year for Get the State Off My Plate--a new, independent voice covering the bustling intersection of food and politics (and sometimes culture).

This year, we've covered food deserts, fast-food research, fat-tax schemes, food-insecure puppets, the Obama's food consumption and presumption, government-sanctioned microwaves, Olive Garden outrages, food punditry, pie charts, and the acceptability of applying mayonnaise on hot dogs. And then there's the different food wars: the War on Happy Meals, the War on Salt, the War on Soda, the War on Raw Milk, the War on Chocolate Milk, the War on Fries, the War on Fat People, and the War on Hot Dogs.

Without further ado, here are the top 10 posts in terms of pageviews:

1. Swanson Meals (July 14)
2. Fight For Your Chocolate Milk Rights (Nov. 27)
3. Obama's Cooked (Oct. 10)
4. Well Played, Ronald (Dec. 1)
5. "Imminent Danger" (Nov. 29)
6. 45 Czars—This Is What Democracy Looks Like? (Oct. 10)
7. My Plea to the Makers of Zoi Yogurt (July 5)
8. Fat Tax: A Rotten Idea from Denmark (Oct. 5)
9. New Fast-Food Studies Reveal No-Brainers (Oct. 30)
10. Bravery In A Bowl (Nov. 28)

Next year should be very interesting with the presidential election and all that it brings ... stay tuned.

P.S. In the spirit of year-end list-making, here are a few other lists we recommend:

Fast Food Maven's Fast Food Winners and Fast Food Flops of 2011
The Obama Administration’s Top 10 Foolish Quotes of 2011
10 Best Internet Tributes to Ron Swanson
The Embarrassing Songs That Got Stuck In Our Head in 2011

Season's Warnings

Stop the presses: People drink sugary beverages during the holidays! And restaurants capitalize on this seasonal behavior. Yes, it's scary and true. Fortunately, CBSnews.com has investigated the sugar content of holiday-themed coffee drinks and has the "surprising results".



Actually, there's not much to investigate since the calories have to be printed all over everything now. But hey, it's still good to know these puff-piece "reporters" are looking out for us.

Snap, Crack, Pop

You know what one of the differences between cocaine and sugary cereal is?

If you overdose on cocaine, you can die. If you overdose on cereal, you can diet.


Might as well face it, you're addicted to loops (photo: flickr/Zanastardust)

This is common sense, right? And yet, in his latest blog post, New York Times' food crusader Mark Bittman writes that "a growing body of research suggests that foods sweetened with sugar or high-fructose corn syrup can be as addictive as nicotine or cocaine." The story which Bittman links to in The Daily Mail blares the headline, "Are cupcakes as addictive as cocaine?" Phrasing this as a question and using words like "suggests" allows these journalists to sound skeptical and somewhat objective while still advancing a sensational notion. (The Daily Mail story does include a dissenting quote from someone with the American Beverage Association to provide the minimum amount of balance.)

In the good old days, the food police would label stuff they didn't like as junk food. Now they want us to equate less-than-healthy eats with illegal drugs.

Further down in his post, Bittman frets about the aggressive lobbying and marketing behind the big cereal brands. I don't doubt that he's sincerely concerned about the health of kids, but he seems to overlook the role of parents in moderating what kids eat. No amount of lobbying or advertising can force parents to buy bad cereal, and if you take away your kids' Froot Loops and replace them with something healthier, they may whine but they won't need to detox at the Promises clinic or commit crimes to keep feeding their habit.

But this isn't really about parenting. It's about liberals' desire to control the public's dietary and media intake. They want to control which products hit the marketplace. Control can be very addicting, after all.

Regulating Inactivity

The Blaze has a video essay up that explores whether the government can actually force people to eat their veggies and join Weight Watchers under Obamacare. In essence, that is a question that the Supreme Court is expected to take up next spring. The scary thing is that there is actually a judicial precedent for this concept, which relates to the Constitution's Commerce Clause.

It's an interesting and educational video that's worth 15 of your minutes.

Quick Bites: Don't Feed the Demons

• Obese people should be demonized the way smokers have been demonized, even though obesity is usually the result of more than one factor and is fundamentally different than smoking. This demonization of fatness would be basically okay since there is money at stake. That's the boiled-down version of the argument made by Shannon Brownlee of the New America Foundation (a liberal think tank) in Time Magazine. She actually uses the word "demonize."  



"Maybe it’s time to be at least a little more willing to similarly demonize excess poundage," writes Shannon Browlee in Time (photo from zazzle.com)


Brownlee also seems to lament that no one has yet come up with a fat equivalent to secondhand smoke, but I'm sure the food police will eventually come up with something to facilitate the type of good-for-you bullying she envisions.

• Now let's switch to talking about a think thank that I like. Media Research Center's Brent Bozell has a spot-on column called "Hollywood's Soda-Pop Statism" that points how out many celebrities/elite types have a Puritanical stance about which foods their kids can eat but are anything-goes when it comes to everything else they do with their bodies.
• When you're in the military, the state is definitely on your plate. It must be tough, but at least they've tried to build a better, longer-lasting sandwich for troops in the field.

Well Played, Ronald

Despite the city's attempts to ban it, the Happy Meal remains a San Francisco treat. Read this SF Weekly blog post to learn how McDonald's is using a loophole to continue selling the meals with toys. It's an amusing read that shows why bureaucrats are never going to be able to save your kids for you.



Who's smilin' now? (photo: mylot.com)

 Another lesson here is that trying to take away people's freedoms usually backfires. When government tries to impede business through such overreaching regulation, companies will naturally look for loopholes to keep making money and will often find them. A company does not become as big as McDonald's without knowing how to take care of business.

(P.S. Feel free to chime in to our discussion about this on Facebook. For National Review's take on the matter, click here.)