Paul Krugman is on an anti-obesity kick, as demonstrated by his most recent column.
The anti-obesity movement has become the left’s latest cause, even though it’s based on pseudo-science. No one has a clue as to what food is truly “healthy.” People are living longer today than ever before, which creates the presumption that what we are eating today is pretty good stuff. The burden of proof should be on those who say we are eating the wrong stuff.
People lose weight on the Dr. Atkins high fat diet, which is the complete opposite result of what is supposed to happen when you eat a high fat diet.
Previous claims that being overweight causes hundreds of thousands of deaths per year in the U.S. turned out to be completely bogus.
Furthermore, the claim that people are getting fatter is also bogus.
Krugman compares obesity to cigarette smoking, but the two are not comparable. Smoking is a voluntary behavior the people can stop. But one’s body weight is to a large extent determined by one’s genes, and eating is not a bad behavior like smoking. You have to eat in order to live.
Krugman ought to go back to writing about stuff he knows about (allegedly economics) and leave obesity to people who have actually bothered to study the issue in an open minded manner.
Okay, so these are the same people who are pro choice when it comes to abortion, but anti-choice when it comes to eating. People have the intellectual and emotional capacity to decide whether they want to abort a child or not, but are completely incompetant to determine whether they should have another oreo or should get the small fries instead of super size it? sure, that makes a lot of sense.
look, i'm pro choice, but the logic has to be extended. if people have the right to privacy with respect to their reproductive rights, they certainly have the right to decide what to put on their dinner plate. while they might have some diminished expectation of privacy regarding what they eat in a restaurant since others can see that they stay at the all you can eat buffet for hour after hour, they certainly are free to buy value meal 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6, super size the damn thing and take it home with them to consume in the privacy of their own dining room.
keep the governement out of you bedroom and out of you kitchen.
Posted by: pp14 | July 09, 2005 at 09:36 AM
"keep the governement out of ... your kitchen"
Wow, I like that slogan.
Posted by: Half Sigma | July 09, 2005 at 02:54 PM
If they start taxing junk food like they tax cigarettes a big mac will cost about $15.00 and the thousands of fast-food employees who need employment will be SOL.
What's next is having to buy your big mac and marlboros from the Russian mafia.
Posted by: christy | July 10, 2005 at 11:43 AM
If you are in charge of your own healthcare, then you are in charge of deciding how to maintain your health. You can choose to be 100 pounds overweight and with that take the additional risk of having higher medical bills. This is as it should be - people responsible for their own decisions and actions.
But some people want to have their cake and eat it too. They want government to be involved in healthcare (either through welfare systems like medicaid or all-out socialized medicine), but then can't accept the logical conclusion of this which is government deciding how you should maintain your health. They are paying for it, so they get to place demands on you.
So if you are aghast at the idea of government taxing sin items like red meat or chocolate, but are in love with government giving you the security blanket of "free" healthcare, check your premises.
Posted by: Scott S | July 10, 2005 at 01:54 PM
If you travel in the US, Europe and Asia, it is obvious that Americans are fat. This is especially true of young people. You see very few fat young people in Europe or Asia.
Krugman seems to be making several points. First that the junk food industry has set up some foundations to do studies that show that being fat is not all that serious a problem. The studies that Half Sigma sites saying America is not getting fatter and being fat is not that bad for your health, may in fact be studies funded by the junk food industry.
These foundations and the research they fund are clearly a public relations campaign intended to influence public opinion, but I suspect this is mostly to counter publicity from the diet industry. When low carb diets became popular, it had a big impact on hi carb food vendors, like donut shops.
Krugman’s other point is the government should do something about this. His argument is that the government and everyone who buys private health insurance are paying more for health coverage because of the high percentage of fat Americans.
It is not clear to me what the government can really do about this. I think this is a life style issue as much as anything. About all the government could do would be some public education programs on the dangers of obesity and the poor life style choices that lead to it. The most serious problem is childhood obesity, and here it is really the parents that are making the bad choices.
Posted by: mikeca | July 10, 2005 at 03:29 PM
so i suppose you consider findings on trans fatty acids to be pseudo-science?
Posted by: anonymous | July 27, 2005 at 04:34 PM