I was out with the kids yesterday, fighting the crowds, playing laser tag, having fun. Yet, as always, I was simply amazed at the number of people I witnessed that were clearly over 400lbs. I just wonder how much longer this can go on. And on a percentage basis, the numbers are simply staggering and getting worse all the time. People must know they are killing themselves, suicide by eating, and nobody cares.
When animals or people can’t control themselves, somebody always has to step in and provide that control. Great article below about what that might look like (as if there wasn’t enough to worry about). Our country’s weight problem can’t go on much longer, but then neither can the debt and fiat creation. It will, like everything else coming our way, end badly.
Gun-Control Today; Fat-Control Tomorrow?
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 12/22/2012
Leaving the highly sensitive topic of “gun-control” aside for the time being, one can’t help but wonder if it isn’t time that the US government, seemingly hell-bent on regulating virtually everything in its quest to prove (to itself?) that America’s population can no longer be trusted with making any responsible decisions on it own (and in the process becoming even bigger), shouldn’t be more focused on “fat-control” instead. Why? Because while guns may or may not kill people, the bottom line is that of the 32K or so death attributed to firearms, roughly 20K, or two thirds were suicides, meaning firearm-based homicides were 11,015 in 2010.
Putting this number in perspective, every year some 935,000 Americans suffer a heart attack, and 600,000 people die from some form heart disease: 1 in every 4 deaths. Net result to society: the cost of coronary heart disease borne by everyone is $108.9 billion each year. And of all proximal factors contributing to heart disease, obesity and overweight is the main one. But of course one can’t make a media spectacle out of 600,000 hospital wards where people quietly pass away, in many cases due to a lifetime of ill decisions relating primarily to food consumption. In fact, some estimate that obesity now accounts for one fifth of the total US health-care bill (the part of the budget which no amount of tax increase can offset). Which is why if the topic of gun-control has managed to promptly tear the country into two (or three, or more), just wait until fat-control (far more than the recent tepid overtures into this field such as Bloomberg’s NYC sugary soda ban) rears its ugly head and sends the already polarized (and weaponized) US society into a state of agitated hyperflux.
Some useful observations on this topic from The Economist:
IN 1937 George Orwell suggested that “changes of diet” might be more important than “changes of dynasty or even of religion”. Now he is being proved right in a way he might not have expected. Having spent millennia worrying about not having enough food, mankind’s main concern is now eating too much (see our special report on obesity).
The story of human health in the past few decades is a broadly encouraging one. Life expectancy has increased—globally, by 12 years for women and 11 years for men from 1970 to 2010. But greater longevity means that people spend more years chronically ill (see article). Obesity makes things worse by raising the risk of diabetes, heart disease, strokes and some cancers. In much of the world, being too fat is now the single largest driver of sickness.
In 2008 obesity rates were nearly double those of 1980. One in three adults was overweight, with a body-mass index (BMI) of 25 or more (at least 77kg for a man 175cm tall); 12% were obese, with a BMI of at least 30. In America, ever the world leader, about two-thirds of adults were overweight in 2008. But Britain lumbered close behind, with six in ten too fat. The problem is not confined to rich countries. Thanks to economic growth, people around the world are eating more food. Workers burn fewer calories at their desks than in the fields. Even in China, one in four adults was too fat in 2008. In Brazil more than half were. Obesity rates in Mexico, Venezuela and South Africa matched those of America. The Pacific islands and Gulf states are home to some of the world’s fattest people.
For those (like this newspaper) who believe that the state should generally keep its nose out of people’s private affairs, obesity presents a quandary. “A millionaire may enjoy breakfasting off orange juice and Ryvita biscuits,” Orwell pointed out; “an unemployed man doesn’t…You want to eat something a little bit tasty.” If people get great pleasure from eating more than is good for them, should they not be allowed to indulge themselves? After all, individuals bear the bulk of the costs of obesity, quite literally. They suffer at work, too: their wages are often lower and, in America, some employers also make fat workers pay more for health insurance.
Yet in most countries the state covers some or most of the costs of health care, so fat people raise costs for everyone. In America, for instance, a recent paper estimated that obesity was responsible for a fifth of the total health-care bill, of which nearly half is paid by the federal government. And there are broader social costs. The Pentagon says that obesity is shrinking its pool of soldiers. Obesity lowers labour productivity. And state intervention is justified where it saves people from great harm at little cost to themselves. Only zealots see seat-belt laws as an affront to personal liberty. Anti-smoking policies, controversial at first, are generally viewed as a success.
So which is it: state intervention? Or, as the Economist correctly asserts for once: individual liberties where people have no choice but to experience the consequences of one or more of their own wrong decisions? But what happens when the entire state is already broke from pre-funding generations of precisely these bad decisions, and there is nothing left in the state’s piggy bank for those who wish to behave prudently and sensibly?
The Economist has some further thoughts:
In the absence of a single big solution to obesity, the state must try many small measures. Governments, some of which already intervene a lot in the first few months of people’s lives, should ensure that parents are warned of the dangers of overfeeding their babies. Schools should serve nutritious lunches, teach children how to eat healthily and give them time to run around. Urban planners should make streets and pavements friendlier to cyclists and pedestrians. Taxing sugary fizzy drinks—which unlike fatty foods have no nutritional value—and limiting the size of the containers in which they can be sold may work. Philadelphia and New York, for example, have implemented a range of such policies, and have seen child-obesity rates dip ever so slightly.
There is a limit, however, to what the state can or should do. In the end, the responsibility and power to change lie primarily with individuals. Whether people go on eating till they pop, or whether they opt for the healthier, slimmer life, will have a bigger effect on the future of the species than most of the weighty decisions that governments make.
Just like in the sensitive issue of gun-control, there is no easy, or definitive answer when it comes to the world’s most overweight nation. Perhaps, however, the best clue to what should happen comes from the WSJ’s interview with the 107 year old Irving Khan, one of Wall Street’s oldest investors and Ben Graham’s research assistant, who made the following remark on unwholesome lifestyles: “Millions of people die every year of something they could cure themselves: lack of wisdom and lack of ability to control their impulses.”
And that’s really it. Sadly, the government, in its encroaching desire to become the world’s nanny state par excellence, already believes it can offset everything else, including human stupidity and impulse control. That it can’t will become very apparent in time, but only when everyone finally wakes up from the 150 year old dream that started with Bismarck’s ‘Welfare State’ utopia, and sadly ends in bloodshed. With or without gun control.
Davos says:
Don’t forget how fast food shitheads make meat:
Restructured meat products are commonly manufactured by using lower-valued meat trimmings reduced in size by comminution (flaking, chunking, grinding, chopping or slicing). The comminuted meat mixture is mixed with salt and water to extract salt-soluble proteins. These extracted proteins are critical to produce a “glue” which binds muscle pieces together. These muscle pieces may then be reformed to produce a “meat log” of specific form or shape. The log is then cut into steaks or chops which, when cooked, are similar in appearance and texture to their intact muscle counterparts. … Such products as tripe, heart, and scalded stomachs are high in protein, completely edible, wholesome, and nutritious, and most are already used in sausage without objection.
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/038442_McDonalds_McRib_sandwich_restructured_meat_technology.html#ixzz2Fu5g9vlu
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23rd December 2012 at 2:09 pm
Ron says:
Must be nice to be thin and preach to the fat folk.
I did notice all the fat folk working at the hospital,smoking cigerettes also.
I do think your onto something though.Starting with fat kids,i see a future where the state well be involved like CPS and look into what the kids parents are doing.Maybe a state sanctioned family diet!
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23rd December 2012 at 2:11 pm
Davos says:
But wait (or weight maybe better) there is more. (Source Natural News)
Packed with calories – and ingredients: In a time of labeling, when government entities and the public are pushing for more disclosure, the package for the McRib would have to grow just to list all of its ingredients.
According to the current box labeling, the sandwich consists of just five basic components – a pork patty and BBQ sauce with pickle slices, onions and a sesame bun.
But, as Time magazine points out, a closer examination of McDonald’s own list of ingredients reveals that the sandwich contains a total of 70 ingredients, including azodicarbonamide, a flour-bleaching component that is often used to produce foamed plastics (think gym mats and the soles of shoes). In fact, “the compound is banned in Europe and Australia as a food additive,” says Time. Other ingredients include ammonium sulfate and polysorbate 80.
Besides, the sandwich itself contains an incredible amount of calories – 500 at least – along with 26 grams of fat, 44 grams of carbohydrates and 980 milligrams of sodium, nearly half the recommended daily amount of about 2,400 milligrams.
Not a good choice for your heart: The ingredients, combined with a dose of 10 mg of saturated fat (nearly half of the recommended daily allowance), make the McRib an enemy of a healthy heart, say the experts.
“Think about that for a second: When you eat a McRib, you’re eating the same chemical ingredients and compounds in those disgusting yoga mats at the gym. And that’s on top of the fact that it tastes terrible in the first place,” writes Rick Paulas, food editor for KCET, a public television network in southern California. “Which means it’s time to ask: Why are we still eating this?”
That’s a very valid question. In the meantime, that sound you hear is the further tightening of the nation’s belt line.
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/038442_McDonalds_McRib_sandwich_restructured_meat_technology.html#ixzz2Fu6QyRSg
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23rd December 2012 at 2:12 pm
Eddie says:
It’s a bit of a Catch-22, isn’t it?
Legislate healthy eating and it might endanger our last functional economic engine, the fast food franchise.
I don’t look for any legislation aimed at decreasing consumption or spending by the poor and middle class.
I’m 5ft 11in tall and weigh 200, which puts me at a BMI of 27.9. My waist is only 36 inches. Am I overweight. Slightly. Am I making myself sick? I don’t think so.
Even back when I was running three or more times a week my BMI was over 25. I think the arbitrary numbers generated by a BMI calculator can be misleading. Now if I weighed 300 pounds and had a BMI in the mid-forties..yeah, I’d be worried.
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23rd December 2012 at 2:45 pm
Micro-Be says:
Don Lemon, a black man that is a news anchor for CNN, has brought up the possibility of profiling white men in response to the recent mass shootings. Seriously, profiling? As in the thing that black people vehemently oppose?
If one news anchor has said it publicly then what are the odds that it is seriously discussed in the private circles of whomever the elite may be?
Call me crazy (I’m probably sane by TBP standards, thank God) but it seems that these little gold nugget bits of news are the true sign of the times, the rest is smoke and mirrors. Profiling? How about internment. You could justify that as well with the ole tripe of “whitey made the world a bad place and enslaved people”. The Supreme Court has already ruled internment legal during a time of war…and well, the War on Terror doesn’t end, isn’t supposed to.
More proof the fix is in.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/12/23/cnns_don_lemon_on_gun_control_should_we_start_profiling_white_men.html
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23rd December 2012 at 2:47 pm
Micro-Be says:
I don’t believe, because it is to fantastical, that only whites are going to be targeted and interned, I just sort of digressed into doom since there is a case for profiling a huge segment of the population being gingerly floated around in the public’s ears. Is it a far stretch though?
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23rd December 2012 at 2:51 pm
KaD says:
I have no problem with letting people Darwinize themselves with food. As long as they pay IN FULL for their own drugs to prolong their life of poor decisions or don’t get them at all.
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23rd December 2012 at 4:33 pm
Llpoh says:
There is the AWD I know and love. And here I thought he had forgotten all about fatties.
Nice to see you are consistent, AWD. And I have missed your posts. Thanks.
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23rd December 2012 at 4:54 pm
Stan says:
Determin what the ideal weight is for each person. Make them go to a concentration camp one a month to weigh in. Tax them 500 bucks for each pound they are overweight .
More revenue and less lard ass.
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23rd December 2012 at 5:06 pm
Colma Rising says:
Why does the Fat People Map look like the electoral college map?
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23rd December 2012 at 5:07 pm
Stan says:
PS. If they don’t have the money to pay the fat tax then sentence them to hard labor with ball and chain attached to leg
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23rd December 2012 at 5:08 pm
AWD says:
Lipoh, glad your back
Colma, that’s not a fat people map, it’s a heart disease map. 1 in 4 deaths are from heart disease.
People that actually work for a living and try to provide their families with health insurance are just getting killed. HMO premiums keep going up every year, year after year. The average family of four spends a average of $12,000 for health insurance(along with employer contributions). Many companies now have a policy of not hiring obese people because of health costs (Wal mart being a notable exception; they won’t hire a person unless they are morbidly obese).
This country needs to have this discussion. It’s not about making fun of fatties, it is a serious problem and will bankrupt Medicare (thanks to obese boomers). Obamacare is dumping people into medicaid, and the government will take over healthcare before long, and they won’t pay for it, they can’t, the costs are too much. Obesity is going to triple healthcare costs in the next two decades. TRIPLE. Who the fuck is going to pay for that?
So much for being serious, there are about a 100 other things that will also bankrupt this country, so who give a fuck.
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23rd December 2012 at 5:29 pm
Stucky says:
As I gain more mass, why doesn’t it go to my Weenie? That’s what really pisses me off.
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23rd December 2012 at 6:37 pm
Colma Rising says:
Let go of it for a while, and stop strangling it all the time, and give it a chance. Little fella needs some air to grow, Herr Stuchentinyshnitzel.
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23rd December 2012 at 6:49 pm
DaveL says:
Can’t help noticing the low heart disease rate in Arizona. Either it’s so fucking hot here that blood is thinner than water, or it’s Mexican food.
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23rd December 2012 at 8:55 pm
Makati1 says:
I don’t think the Us has to worry about fat for much longer. The food will not be available to make it. And the need to work physically to get it (food) will burn off those extra calories. 3rd world countries have few fat people for a reason. ^_^
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23rd December 2012 at 10:11 pm
Lamont Cranston says:
My county in NC (Watauga/Boone – county seat) was OK. And when I looked at the NC & SC Counties with positives, guess what. Either high income urban or <10% black.
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23rd December 2012 at 11:11 pm
NickelthroweR says:
While I may not wish to see obese people forced to have their jaws wired shut, I do believe that they should be forced to pay more for healthcare. I also believe that they should be forced to pay for an extra airplane seat or an extra seat in concert venues. I recently went to a concert in a stadium that was built in the 1980′s and at least half of the people were spilling out of their seats. It was disgusting.
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23rd December 2012 at 12:13 am