Friday, February 1, 2008

Fatty Fridays: Big Government, Big Portions

War not going well? Economy slipping down the tubes? Currency plumetting in value? Screw it, let's pick on fat people.

It's good to see the Mississippi state legislature has its priorities in order as three Representatives, Republicans W. T. Mayhall, Jr. and John Read, and Democrat Bobby Shows (it's good to see that stupidity has no partisan preference) have drafted a bill that would prohibit restaurants from serving obese people.



You can read the whole bill here, but essentially the Mississippi Department of Health, in conjunction with the Mississippi Council on Obesity Prevention and Management would establish what exactly obesity is, and how they would ensure that those whole fall under that label could be prohibited from restaurants.

A couple of quick observations:

-Mississippi is a conservative state. That used to mean small government. This seems a little big brother to me.
-The National Restaurant Association can't like this one bit. That's like prohibiting people who want to get engaged from buying diamond rings; it's not going to be good for business.
-No one in their right mind will vote for this.

So what do you think? Do you think the obesity problem in this country is so bad that we have to force restaurants not to serve people?

2 comments:

The Ex said...

That's the worst thing I've seen in awhile. It's not even close to an answer.

Anonymous said...

You know, I went to school in Mississippi (Ole Miss - Hotty Toddy) and people just COOK differently in the south - look at Paula Deen (who I LOVE) - she puts a stick of butter in everything! Seriously changing the way people eat isn't going to happen. Moderation, well - maybe they should try to regulate portion sizes. And perhaps the bill should call for increased funding to school systems for physical education and better, more healthful lunches rather than pizza and surfing the internet at home and school...