You want fries with that?
Obesity Tops Smoking As Health RiskYou know what this means don't you? Yup! A whole bunch of new, compassionate laws and lawsuits!
- Mandatory Fat or No-Fat seating in resturants
- Mandatory Fat sections in airports
- Lawsuits from Second-hand Fat Victims
- Counter-suits
- Massive protests from pro-life organizations. "Don't eat that! You're killing your baby!"
- Massive counter-protests from pro-choice organizations.
Think for a second here: just how long have humans been eating, smoking and even heaven forbid drinking? What fraction of the human race do you think over-indulges in these pastimes? I mean to the point of becoming a "danger to themselves or others?"
Compared to the mass of humanity that manages to get on with its collective life without excessive indulgence, the over-indulgers are a tiny fraction, a true minority.
The most telling sentence in the news story is "The survey found that 59 percent of Americans are at least overweight." 59%? And what is the criteria? "Obesity was determined by finding a respondent's body mass index, a figure derived by calculating a person's weight in pounds by 703 and dividing that result by height in inches squared." Whatever that means.
And where did this information come from? "The telephone survey, which was conducted in 1998, asked 9,585 adults about their weight, height, smoking and drinking habits, income and quality of life. They also were asked if they had any of 17 chronic health problems, including asthma, cancer, diabetes and heart problems." A telephone survey? Public health officials are advised to "intensify their fight against obesity to levels that at least match the public health campaign against smoking." based on a telephone survey?
According to the U.S. Census Bureau the population of the United States is 284,374,349 people. Let's see, 9,585 over 284,374,349 = 0.003% Is that statisticly significant? Is my math wrong? It is 2:30 in the morning ... maybe I'd better let that point slide ...