We are taught that obesity is bad. Yet at the same time we hear studies that show that the elderly that have a little more beef on their bones are better able to wither the storm when they are faced with adversity.
That makes sense. The skinny old lady who has bowel surgery has less reserve. Yet it's also true that the elderly that are more fit are also more capable of withering the storm. Yet still, you have progressives like Michelle Obama telling us that we are overweight and that "we need to do something about it."
Yes it is true that we are overweight. In fact, studies show that as many as 60% of Americans are overweight. Yet another study shows that as many as 60% of Americans are satisfied with their appearance. So, when it comes to Obama succeeding at her initiative to get Americans to eat more healthy, you'd think she'd have a problem Houston.
Yes. With 60% of Americans overweight, and ironically that same 60% happy with their bodies even if they are homely or overweight, you'd think this wouldn't jibe well with Michelle's initiative for "do something" about obesity. You can read about Michell's new initiative here.
I agree with Michelle Obama when she says we need to eat smarter, and to eat healthier. Yet I don't think it's a good idea to force people to eat healthier. We should be educated, yet it should be our choice. Eating at McDonald's is a choice. Eating high salt food that tastes good in restaurants is a choice.
She said, as reported by latimesblogs.latimes.com, "Next, Michelle Obama's health reform plan for the nation's restaurant menus and families dining out," that Americans are 'programmed' to like certain foods that the 'government' deems unhealthy. So she believes restaurants should offer healthier options, even if that means deleting more popular items.
Likewise, healthier options might also mean sacrificing taste. And while it might be nice to have healthier options when I'm on a workout plan, most of the time when I go out to eat I want to eat something that tastes good, like a Big Mag or a nice juicy steak with mushrooms, sauteed onions, and lots of fatty butter.
I don't want them to go easy on the salt, as Mrs. Obama recommends. They can do that in their school lunch program, but not at our restaurants. And I most certainly hope they don't come up with a government program that mandates restaurants like McDonalds to cater to the cook health fringe. As is noted, what we put into our bodies is a choice. If we choose to eat out at a salty, fatty restaurant, that's our choice.
But according to the above mentioned blog entry, "she (Michelle Obama) wants to facilitate a nationwide re-programming of personal tastes by having restaurants start serving less of what customers ignorantly want and more of what they should have."
Yes, what she's saying is a noble idea. And if it means serving healthy foods in hospitals and school cafeterias I'm all for it. Yet it must not be mandated by the government, because that's not Constitutional at all. If that's the case, I'm not for it.
Yet I agree. We are programmed to eat bad. Back in the 1980s progressives decided kids were too skinny and not eating well enough, so they put fat food in the school cafeterias. So in a way, progressivism, in its quest to idealism America, is partially to blame for our obesity problem.
I think it's ironic that the same 'progressives' who had the solution to under-nourished children have the same solution to the problem they helped to create.
Yet still, I think it's common sense, and neat, when I ask my kids, "Would you like fries or apple dippers with your chicken nuggets," and my kids say, "Apple dippers."
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