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.

There are occasions, however, when something comes out of that ugly world that is so incredibly wrong it simply must be called out.  We must recognize those moments when Val Kilmer would have deemed a response as being a “moral imperative” and act accordingly.

During the June 11th broadcast of the nationally syndicated Rush Limbaugh Show Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh took issue with claims by President Obama that obesity was a contributing factor to the rising health care costs in America.  In fact, Mr. Limbaugh blamed those who “regularly exercise” as being the ones to blame.

I think those of you that regularly exercise…You’re the people getting injured.  You’re the people showing up at the hospital with busted knees, and tendons, and skin cancer.  Ankle sprains, knee and hip replacements, broken bones, concussions, muscle, ligament, tendon, cartilage strains, and tendinitis.  Rotator cuff tears.  All you exercise freaks!  You’re the ones putting stress on the health care system!  What happens when people don’t exercise and keep their weight relatively under control?  Nothing!  They probably don’t even know their doctors names.

While I have never been a fan of Rush Limbaugh I spent many years listening to his show and have read both of his books.  Rush often claims that much of what he says is not meant to be taken seriously and that he is simply illustrating absurdity by being absurd.  I strongly suspect that if he was called out directly for the comments he made on June 11th his response would be something along those lines, and as such I will not point out the factual inaccuracies in his statement.

The problem with something like this, though, is that there are a LOT of people who listen to Rush who take his word as Gospel.  Who, quite frankly, aren’t in on the joke and will undoubtedly use it as an excuse not to exercise.

I understand that Rush and those who agree with him are very passionate about what is going on with the health care debate, but I would hope that he could make his point without encouraging bad behavior.  People who exercise in an effort to control their weight are not the problem with health care in America today, and Rush Limbaugh knows it.

If he didn’t he wouldn’t be on a strict 1500 calorie per day diet.

Not everyone can afford to have someone put all their meals together for them like Rush can.  Those of us with regular incomes have to actually pay attention to recipes and most likely can’t afford many of the expensive foods he is eating.  People like us need to exercise to lose weight, and blaming us for the rise in health care costs today is just inane.