"Power Lunch: The War on Obesity"

Published 01 January 2002

(word count: 750)

Most of us probably know by now that obesity can lead to all sorts of nasty problems like heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, and the need to replace our entire spring wardrobe.  Obesity itself, of course, is not a disease.  The Infoplease online dictionary defines “obese” simply as “very fat or overweight; corpulent.”  But U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher would like to rewrite the dictionary.  Rewrite it with the ever magical bureaucratic pen.

A recent Washington Post story about the Top Doc’s “national plan of action,” in which he attacks the fast food industry (surprised?) for causing an epidemic of obesity, includes the quote, “Obesity also should be classified officially as a disease.”

And why not?  Even the aforementioned dictionary defines disease as a disorder resulting from, along with all of the usual suspects, “unfavorable environmental factors.”

So now we know.  The disease of obesity is caused not only by genetic traits or malfunctioning body organs or by how much or what kinds of foodstuffs we voluntarily pass between our pearly whites, but also by the simple act of hanging out in a social environment that breeds bacon cheeseburgers, onion rings, chicken fried steaks, and the highly infectious McWendy King Breakfast-on-a-Stick with Secret Sauce.  It seems that we catch obesity from microscopic airborne deep fried chicken nuggets.

The mouths of anti-tobacco lawyers must be watering.  Last time they only represented smokers.  This time their class action plundering will involve everybody who eats, which is roughly the entire population of the country.

And the people at Weight Watchers are likely licking their chops as well.  One reason the Surge Gen wants to redefine obesity as a disease is to “encourage insurance companies to reimburse for weight-control expenses.”  Think you’re paying super-sized premiums for health insurance now?  Wait until “encourage” becomes “force.”  The Center for Science in the Public Interest opines, “What's unique is to have the government saying that we need to address nutrition and physical activity as a societal issue, much like we did for tobacco.”

Libertarians may wish to opine, what’s “unique” about politicizing every human activity on the planet?

It’s an old trick much beloved by politicians and bureaucrats.  Identify something with a figure of speech (“I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.”) and then treat it as literal (“You want fries with that?”)  Thus, “obesity” becomes a disease and too much obesity becomes an “epidemic.”

So maybe it’s time for libertarians to give up demanding rationality from our office-holders (and from the general population who can’t tell the difference between a figure of speech and a plus-size figure) and turn the dinner tables on them:

Dr. Luce Kannon announced today that power-hunger has reached epidemic proportions amongst the nation’s political and bureaucratic classes.  “Power-hunger should be classified officially as a disease,” he stated during the unveiling of his National Plan of Action.  “Symptoms of power-hunger in elected and appointed officials are easily recognized; their lips move and words slobber out.”  The definitive diagnosis is made, however, when the words that slobber out coagulate into phrases claiming that the solution to every problem that afflicts humankind can be solved by bigger, more expensive, more intrusive, more powerful government.

While a few politicians seem to contract power-disease from genetic hand-me-downs (the Kennedys, the Bushes) the vast majority become infected when their bodies politic are invaded, typically to a level of 51% or higher, by viruses known to the medical community as “votes.”

Bureaucrats, on the other hand, develop the disorder almost exclusively from “unfavorable environmental factors.”  That is, from hanging out in an environment that breeds power.  Since government is a base of power it naturally attracts base people who want power.  Known pockets of high contagion include city halls, state capitals, and a particularly virulent District known as Columbia.

Dr. Luce Kannon cautioned those who would champion familiar remedies of the past, such as the application of term limits, recall efforts, and a popular home remedy known colloquially as “voting the rascals out.”

“These efforts only treat the symptoms,”  he said, whereas his National Plan of Action calls for an all-out War on Power-Hunger.  The only way to fight this epidemic is to attack the root cause.  Power-hunger disease can be conquered only through regular transfusions of libertarianism, followed by frequent booster shots of such antibodies as the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

We may not be able to cure obesity by these means, but we may be able to bring our national fathead problem under control.

- by Garry Reed