What does Uncle Sam newest antiobesity crusade have in common with the Iraq/Afghanistan war and the Wall St bailout? They all were presented to us as in our own best interest. But follow the money and there is a corporate agenda behind every one of them!
A patient comes in to the emergency room hemorrhaging. The bleeding must be stopped in a matter of moments in this life or death scenario. The ER physician immediately springs to action and whips out a calorie counter. Ridiculous? I can’t help but draw a parallel between this, and the President’s new (recycled) antiobesity initiative. We are over 12 TRILLION dollars in debt and the Chinese want to stop lending. More than 10 states are on the verge of bankruptcy. Local governments are cutting funds for libraries, public transportation and social services. There are record numbers of people unemployed, going hungry, in foreclosure or with homes underwater. Yet what captures the nation’s attention is CHILDHOOD OBESITY??? Are we having a Marie Antoinette moment, so in denial of our immediate decline we want to fooll ourselves into thinking love handles are our most pressing issue? Let them eat snack cake lites!
There is more to this than a dysfunctional society obsessed with weight. To understand why the government is embarking on yet another antiobesity crusade we need to understand what happened to our entire system. The corporate power-elite has so co-opted the system that everything the government does is in their interest in one way or another. President Obama had to support this the same way he had to support the Wall St bailout and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The same way he had to defend the bankers’ bonuses. Anyone who didn’t would never get to be president, let alone stay there for long. It is all about profits for the corporations. If you are still unaware how private contractors gouged the taxpayer in Iraq I recommend this link. (See how they charged Uncle Sam $100 for bag of laundry and blew up trucks with flat tires because what the heck, they could bill the government http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cJlJudDtVE). It was a gold mine under the guise of national interest. Just as the antiobesity crusade will be equally lucrative to the weight loss industry under the guise of protecting the children. (And didn’t the itis-all-part-of-the-marketing Good Morning America segment on the state of our kids' health have a heart string tugging theme song to prove it!)
Judging by many of the comments under Kate Harding’s excellent article(http://www.salon.com/life/broadsheet/feature/2010/02/10/michelle_obama_weight), whose aim was to try to gently open our well meaning First Lady’s eyes to see the potential harm she can cause, some readers will become apoplectic . But obesity is a life threatening condition they parrot MSM and their Pharma duped physicians. Something must be done. Well, yes and no. First, let us clarify that there is not one type of obesity. There have been chubby children for centuries and many have lived long and healthy lives; never getting any of the dreaded diseases prematurely. John Adams was a robust child who became a portly adult who lived past 90. His secret was walking 10 miles a day and living in a society with a dearth of fat nags. (They were too busy with the American Revolution to bother about BMI, imagine that!) Some people are just meant to be heavier than others – period!!!
There is, however, a new type of obesity in modern society. Environmental estrogens are causing havoc with endocrine systems. Bisphenol A, a chemical in plastic has been associated with metabolic disorders that lead to diabetes, weight gain and heart disease. Animal experiments show Bisphenol A exposure causes mice to become fatter with the SAME diet and exercise levels.(http://healthmad.com/health/chemicals-in-food-packaging-linked-to-childhood-obesity/) Then there is all the MSG in the food supply. When they want to create diabetes in lab animals they feed them MSG.(http://www.truthinlabeling.org/Obesity.html or look up “The Slow Poisoning of America”). And lets not forget growth hormones in the meat an milk that have not been sufficiently tested. When childhood obesity is a side effect of one of these factors, health may indeed be at risk. But the solution is to have a safer food supply. Under these conditions, trying to eliminate diabetes by preventing weight gain is akin to trying to prevent measles by erasing spots.
Clearly body weight is not now and has never been exclusively about individual choice. That is a marketing slogan by the food and diet industry that has been replayed over and over again by our biggest disinformation agent – MSM. But even if it WAS, is a government nag really the answer? It may surprise many to know that government has been fanning the flames of antifat hysteria since Eisenhower. (http://www.wfrv.com/news/national/story/Government-fitness-efforts-havent-stemmed-kid/zz5jcrIMYUK0N
GOTWSigEQ.cspx?rss=852) There were dire warnings in the 1950s we were digging our graves with our knives and forks (that healthier-than-thou Huckabee is hardly original). Yet we are living longer than ever. In the Kennedy era, a hideously insensitive ad sported a man with an ample tummy as the harbinger of things to come. (One wonders if this is partially to blame for so many tragic eating disorders among the Kennedy women.) And who could forget the laughable claim by former Surgeon General Richard Carmona that obesity was a bigger threat to national security than weapons of mass destruction. (O.k. that one may be technically true because we are still looking for those WMDs.) There is that wonderful Einstein quote “ The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” What would possibly make the current administration think this campaign with the same rhetoric will make any difference? The answer is they don’t, they know it is rhetoric. Its purpose is to appease the corporations for whom weight obsession is a way to funnel billions a year from the pockets of the middle classes into their grubby coffers. Just look up who sponsors the American Obesity Association(http://obesity1.tempdomainname.com/subs/contributor_list.shtml). The government nagging is supposed to raise enough alarm for parents to rush their kids straight to the “professionals.” Whose risky interventions often do more harm than fat itself! But that is no problem, more health problems equals even more profit. Does anyone really think it is a coincidence that a few weeks before the official kickoff, MSM was saturated with articles about how kids need medical screening for BMI?
Not that the components of this campaign are all bad. I personally applaud improving school nutrition programs and bringing healthier choices to inner cities. As well as encouraging exercise. It takes people inside and outside the system to make a difference. President Obama is working inside the system, and he has a few tricks up his sleeve despite the constraints. Kids of all shapes and sizes will get better nutrition under this plan. If they said it was to feed the hungry, conservatives would be up in arms over more government spending. Besides that would reinforce in the public’s mind how economically hard times are. Feeding needy kids under the guise of preventing obesity makes us look affluent. And it fits in with the morality of the power-elite; many of the “fat cats” are gym rats whose sense of personal morality allows them to believe being fat is a worse sin than taking the country down with their greed. Their socialite wives would rather see a hungry child than a chubby child. This is one food program easier for the power-elite to swallow.
If the First Lady can really get the food companies to take the garbage out of our food supply, so much the better too. Maybe they will do it in secret, and then credit the number of leaner kids to the lifestyle interventions. So the public will never realize to extent of which they have been poisoned. The problem with this approach is that there is no vindication for the millions of fat Americans who have been unfairly stereotyped as weak willed and gluttoness; no justice for vigilant parents who were following the best advice they had at the time only to have their parenting abilities publically questioned. I think President Obama is aware of this too, and that is one reason for his choice of Dr. Benjamin as Surgeon General. (And BTW anyone who thinks a moderately plump woman her size can’t be healthy is just plain stupid!) But even if that huge IF came true and big food cleaned up its act, it is still a deception of the grandest order. It is still string pulling behind closed doors under the assumption the public doesn’t have the right to know. And it is still enacting change at the expense of the "overweight," who already are far too overly scapegoated as it is!
Whether or not this program will be effective in the slightest, or just more money down the drain remains to be seen. The only clear lesson to be learned was stated at the beginning. If government is pushing something, it is a safe bet there is a corporate agenda behind it. For corporations government has become nothing more than a tool to enhance their profits; their vehicle to the good life. The politicians that pretend to be in the drivers seat are nothing more than glorified chaufers! And on the corporations’ way to riches, we the tax payers have been dropped off at the cleaners!