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Thursday, November 25, 2010

Palin attacks Michelle Obama for her anti-obesity campaign

Even the reliably right wing editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal had praised Michelle Obama's campaign against childhood obesity but for Sarah Palin it's another example of government interference.

Take her anti-obesity thing that she is on. She is on this kick, right. What she is telling us is she cannot trust parents to make decisions for their own children, for their own families in what we should eat. And I know I'm going to be again criticized for bringing this up, but instead of a government thinking that they need to take over and make decisions for us according to some politician or politician's wife priorities, just leave us alone, get off our back, and allow us as individuals to exercise our own God-given rights to make our own decisions and then our country gets back on the right track.

It's estimated that health related obesity costs America close to $200 billion a year. The statistics are frightening, especially among children. Type 2 Diabetes, also called adult-onset Diabetes is no longer restricted to adults. Obesity rates for adolescents has tripled since 1980 to almost 20%. Among adults its also tripled to about 30%. Including those who are overweight and obese the number rises to about 70%.

The Wall Street Journal is right on this one.

The Administration wants $10 billion to fund more nutritious school breakfasts and lunches, and here's a modest proposal: Take the money out of U.S. farm subsidies that make unhealthy foods artificially cheap. Most of the excess calories in the American diet come in the form of highly processed starches, and Tufts University's Timothy Wise estimates that since the 1996 farm bill corn and soybeans have been priced 23% and 15% below average production costs.

You'll never hear Palin complain about the farm subsidies mentioned above but trying to educate adults and children about eating well is too much government interference. There was a time when cigarettes were considered healthy. Education put an end to that.

In Palin's dismal world view making "our own decisions and then our country gets back on the right track" is the right course so not fighting obesity is a better way, and damn the cost.

America leads the world in obesity and as a rule, the more conservative a state is, tehe more obese its citizens are. In 2009 every state with an obesity rate over 30% is reliably Republican.

If we continue on the path of eating our way to fatness there will be no solution to bringing down health care costs. America has plunged to 49th in the world for longevity, lowest among developed nations and the biggest culptit os obesity. Just getting back to 1980v rates will save the country well over $100 billion a year. We all pay for that no matter how healthy we are and Palin is too stupid to figure that one out.

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