THE DIRECTOR OF THE HEALTH POLICY PROGRAM AT THE NEW AMERICA FOUNDATION WAGES WAR ON THE OBESE

The opinion piece we link to below perfectly illustrates the slippery slope in which we are now well engaged ever since we allowed our governments to control people’s smoking behavior without raising our voices loudly and unanimously to protect our fellow citizens’autonomies. 

   

As much as they like to gloat that it is thanks to their heavy handed policies that smoking prevalence decreased significantly in the last decades, the reality is somewhat different.  While it is true that public health campaigns against smoking did well in lowering the number of smokers, they stopped being effective the day they became a ruthless war against smokers themselves.  Very few people like to be bullied and shamed into compliance for the betterment of the ''collective we'' and this is exactly what public health has been doing to smokers in the last decade.  The unintended, albeit predictable, consequences are that smoking rates have been more or less stagnating both in the U.S.A. and Canada and even increasing in some countries ever since public health went from educating the people to brow-beating them into complying with its dictates.  Did the writer consider how human nature works before advocating to follow the same path for people who are overweight or obese?   

If we obstinately refuse to learn valuable lessons from the war on smokers and foolishly repeat the same error of allowing the state to go into a heavy artillery war against another ‘’drain on the economy’’ (their words) and shame the obese like this writer suggests, why would we expect to be able to stop the state when one day they wage wars against people who want to bring to term their less than perfect fetus or who wish that their old and sick parent dies naturally?  If we accept that public health policy is based on collectivist and economic perspectives rather than human and compassionate bases and we irresponsibly jump on the bandwagon of shaming overweight and obese people , we would be clearly inviting eugenic and Soylent Green type of ethics to take over our societies sooner than we realize.  

   

Is this what we want? 

What can we as individuals do to stop it?  Be proud of who we are and respectful of ourselves and what we want or don't want out of life.  Keep informed, critical and alert and explore various perspectives that we don't necessarily hear from the mainstream media.   Be tolerant and respectful of our fellow citizens' differences.  Offer our unconditional assistance and compassion only to those who solicit it.  Tell alleged do-gooders that our minds and bodies are ours and not open to public scrutiny or criticism.  Express to our politicians, the media, forums and on open lines how we feel about public health stepping way out of line and robbing us of our most precious belonging - our intimacy.  

Let’sStop Being Passive About Fighting Obesity

BRAVE NEW WORLD - HATCHERIES ANYONE?

The Daily Mail in the UK reports that four children will be taken away from their family risking to never see them again because they are fat and the parents failed to follow the health board’s ultimatum to bring their children’s weight under control.

If the article is accurate and truthful, how can such drastic measures possibly be justified? What good will it do the children if they can no longer see their parents? Not one word in that article about any of the children suffering illnesses because of their weight. According to the article, this decision seems to be based on weight alone. Irrelevant to the Health Department whether that extra weight makes the kids sick now, in the future or never. If the kids are healthy, why would the Health Department choose to cause severe psychological trauma to the children that they will undoubtedly carry all their lives, to perhaps save them from a future illness that might or might not happen? If not outright eugenics, this health board's decision frighteningly resembles it.

Some of the 1005 comments from the readers attempt to compare overweight with underweight and seem to suggest that nobody would have criticized the social workers if the kids were being starved to death by their parents. But there is no possible comparison. Starving a child qualifies as deliberate harm and abuse because it causes certain and immediate harm as opposed to obesity that might possibly cause harm if it persists for long periods of time. Comparing apples to apples, would it be justifiable for the health board to remove a child from his parents if the child was skinny yet he showed no signs of ill health? Not having the ideal weight is not a disease in itself, only a risk factor. If we were to remove children from their loving parents for every risk they take while their children are in their custody, the government would have more children under their care than they would possibly have the resources to handle. Brave New World hatcheries anyone?

The only encouraging sign about this story is that most commentators are outraged at the Health Department’s decision, as they should be.

Parents of seven told: Your children are too fat, so you will never see them again

THE ''WHO'' SPONSORED ''PASSIVE DRINKING'' CAMPAIGN, COMING SOON TO A NEIGHBORHOOD NEAR YOU

If you are neither a smoker, nor obese, if you don’t drink, smoke the occasional joint, or gamble, if you eat all the right foods and do all the appropriate exercises, in other words if you are perfect or a semi-god, you have little to worry about… for now. Please stop reading and keep applauding the WHO and governments that sheepishly obey their guidelines. If however you’re worried that even your perfection will be used against you and you will eventually be blamed for living too long and thus wasting precious resources more useful to the young and productive generations, then maybe you should continue reading because we certainly can’t offer you any guarantees to appease your worries.

As we have repeatedly been cautionning for the last three years, the success of the passive smoking campaign that many have selfishly applauded without listening to those with insight as to the precedent it would be setting, has indeed opened the flood gates of the modern day eugenic tactics.

First they came for the ‘’filthy smoker’’, relying on citizens who not only hate the smoke but who have been conditioned to fear it. Then they came for the obese relying once again that there wouldn’t be too many people sympathetic to the ‘’glutton fatso’s’’ plight! Now they are just about finished polishing the ‘’ passive drinking ‘’ campaign stacking the cards as high as the tobacco campaign has taught them, relying again that not too many people will stand up for the frightening killer, the ‘’disgusting lush’’.

Fear mongering and guilt campaigns have become the trademark of the healthist movement and unless they are stopped using loud protesting and feet stumping -- the only weapons we have against their billions -- you can then be sure that even perfection will not satisfy them and one day they will indeed find a way to hold you responsible for living too long and wasting nature’s resources.

Thanks to our international coalition activist Christine, at: http://www.raucherbewegung.eu for the link to the article below and these additional links that you may want to follow: The war on ‘passive drinking’ , Europe to crack down on ‘passive drinking’, says leaked report

World leaders plan 'guilt campaign' to persuade drinkers to reduce alcohol intake

World leaders are launching a war on alcohol, using as their main weapon the millions of men, women and children whose lives have been destroyed by drink.

The World Health Organisation's global strategy will aim to match the success of campaigns which have made smokers feel guilty about the harm secondhand smoke does to others.

Rather than focusing on the damage drinkers are doing to their own bodies, the WHO wants to highlight the suffering of the innocent victims of drinkdrivers, domestic violence, child abuse and yobbery, this week's New Scientist reports.

The unprecedented drive, to be discussed at the WHO's annual health assembly next month, comes amid mounting concern about the devastating effects of alcohol on society.

Figures show that 40 per cent of domestic violence in EU countries is committed by someone who has been drinking.

Similarly, 40 per cent of all murders are carried out by someone who has been drinking and 10,000 road deaths a year in the EU are alcohol related.

In the UK, an estimated half a million a year are victims of alcohol-related crime - and a million children suffer at the hand of drinkers.

The WHO plan, due in draft form by 2010, will not be legally binding.

Instead, it will include a "menu" of measures that countries can implement.

Likely measures include raising taxes on alcohol and clamping down on advertising and drink-driving.

Governments will also be encouraged to stand up to the alcohol industry's lobbying against price rises and restrictions on availability.

Ian Gilmore, president of the Royal College of Physicians said: "The tipping point for banning smoking in public places was third party damage.

"That is much greater, in terms of violence and damage to unborn children, the first sexual experience and the percentage of unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases."