With all the talk coming out of Washington these days about health care, and specifically the impact that obesity has an our rising health care costs as a nation, it is not difficult to imagine a time when our elected officials may see fit to try and regulate our waist lines. We’ve written here about several incidents where the government has seemed to do just that. From taxing sugary soft drinks to removing a morbidly obese child from his Mothers care, several states have taken a very hands-on approach to dealing with obesity. With those kind of precedents being set it is only a matter of time before slippery slope logic dictates we will have some kind of federal intervention into our daily caloric intake.
Contrary to popular belief, though, not everything that comes out of Washington, D.C. is going to be the equivalent of the next $400 hammer. It’s not necessarily a bad thing that the federal government is taking a closer look at what can be done about the obesity epidemic in America, and one doctor has outlined a plan that could really make a significant difference without infringing on our personal freedoms.
As much as we’d like to avoid it, the fact of the matter is that there are occasions when covering the health and fitness end of the news spectrum is going to lead us here at ShrinkGeek into the murky waters of personal politics. On the whole we strive to be as politically neutral as we can simply due to the fact that we do not wish to alienate readers who may not agree with our views. We want everyone to be healthy, regardless of where they fall in the political spectrum.
