At this moment in time, I am more afraid of the health-industrial complex than the military-industrial complex. The military is working to preserve my freedom and safety while health activists are working to place ever more stigmas, restrictions and prohibitions on society. The strategy and tactics producing victories over freedom in the tobacco wars are beginning to be implemented in the obesity battles.
UW Madison Study: Schoeller and Close were interested in how additional weight affected the amount of money spent on medical care and a vehicle's gasoline mileage, as well as the cost of the additional caloric energy required to support increased body weight. The pair anchored their study on two key assumptions: that the additional calories from upsizing a fast-food meal would be stored as excess energy - in other words, that they would lead to weight gain - and that diners would not compensate for the excess calories during subsequent meals.
The National Institutes of Health is funding a study starting with the “assumptions” that people will eat “excess energy” and won’t “compensate for the excess calories”. Maybe my logic is off base but if you can define excess you have to be able to define adequate because you can’t deviate from a standard until there is a standard.
This high quality government funded scientific research proceeds to use “studies of body mass index and medical cost, average vehicle mileage and gas prices, and caloric expenditure to calculate how the weight gained from one upsized fast-food meal translates into money out of pocket over the next year.” In other words, having defined the key premise that super-sizing absolutely correlates with weight gain, they then discover that super-sizing has negative financial impacts on the greater good. Was any other conclusion possible from the premise?
We all know whenever the greater good is threatened there must be government regulation. This is one more example of the paperwork foundation being prepared to justify obesity police. “To protect and serve … smaller portions”.
This high quality government funded scientific research proceeds to use “studies of body mass index and medical cost, average vehicle mileage and gas prices, and caloric expenditure to calculate how the weight gained from one upsized fast-food meal translates into money out of pocket over the next year.” In other words, having defined the key premise that super-sizing absolutely correlates with weight gain, they then discover that super-sizing has negative financial impacts on the greater good. Was any other conclusion possible from the premise?
We all know whenever the greater good is threatened there must be government regulation. This is one more example of the paperwork foundation being prepared to justify obesity police. “To protect and serve … smaller portions”.
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UPDATE: The University appears to have pulled their press release from their website, but not before Wispolitics and Wisbusiness and Physorg pick up and post the text.
