Big Nanny, Please Save Us From Obesogenic Environmental Forces

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The time has come to retire Uncle Sam as our nation's emblem of can-do spirit. A new symbol is needed to capture our evolving psyche as a declining civilization, one that honestly represents the federal government's increasing pervasiveness in every aspect of our lives. As Uncle Sam leaves the stage, our new national personification should be - Big Nanny. I'll leave it to the cartoonists to bring her I-know-what's-best-for-you visage to life.

Hardly a day goes by without another assault on personal freedom and individual responsibility-all in the name of slowing down the rate at which things are getting worse. The latest blow was a 462-page report from the Institute of Medicine, a branch of the congressionally chartered National Academies of Science, titled Accelerating Progress in Obesity Prevention: Solving the Weight of the Nation. It blames our nation's obesity epidemic on ... obesogenic environmental forces.

Alas and alack, how can mortal man, woman, or child hope to resist the implacable onslaught of obesogenic environmental forces? What can we do to prevent Big Macs from being forced down our gullets? Who can step in to help save us from ourselves?

Big Nanny.

Rest assured, Big Nanny is no lightweight. The 16 members of the committee behind this report wield a dazzling array of titles attesting to their expertise and wisdom-MD, PhD, JD, MPH, FAAFP, MBA, MSW, MA, RD, MSPH, DrPH, and MPA. After due deliberation, they concluded that only a "systemic approach" that engages the moral suasion, legislative power, and taxing authority of national, state, and local governments can banish fatness by ensuring that those for whom the "skill base for healthy living has eroded" get the support they need for "parenting, cooking, and media use."

The turgid tome, chock full of obscure academic references, acknowledges that, "traditionally, obesity has been blamed on the failure of individuals to exercise personal responsibility." Knowing that efforts to refute this discredited tradition will be met with resistance from retrograde elements, Big Nanny advises that, "personal responsibility can be embraced as a value by expanding its meaning." This new meaning includes a laundry list of punitive measures and "choice restrictions" designed to "bridge the divide between views based on personal and collective responsibility."

Can you swallow that? Well you better if you don't want Big Nanny to sic the food police on you. People laughed when Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia asked if the federal government had the power to make every citizen buy broccoli. Read this report and you will stop laughing.

Harder to choke down than middle school mystery meat, the layers of doublespeak in this report attest to the depths to which we have sunk. This is how Big Nanny does science. Give the committee credit for its new coinage, though. Now that the label "obesogenic environmental forces" has entered the lexicon, think of all the ways we can "bridge the divide between views based on personal and collective responsibility."

"I'm not a drunk driver, officer. I am merely a helpless victim of intoxogenic environmental forces."

"You cannot possibly foreclose on my home simply because I took out a mortgage I knew I couldn't afford. I was lured into this trap by toxmortgogenic environmental forces."

"I cannot be held responsible for robbing that man, your honor. Pickpockogenic environmental forces made me do it."

Accept the premise that we are not responsible for the food we choose to eat or put on our children's plates and there is no limit to the social pathologies that can be ascribed to forces beyond an individual's control. And because these pathologies are caused by "environmental forces," the only way to counter them is to re-engineer the environment, which is precisely what the report calls for.

Communication, publication, education, acculturation, transportation, recreation-nothing should be outside the reach of Big Nanny's mandate to protect our health. After all, "numerous precedents can be cited to support the concept that government has a responsibility to protect the health of the public and therefore has the authority to intervene in relevant societal sectors and processes." I did not see the Constitution cited on that list.

And don't think that taxes, tolls, fees, and other restrictions that force people to walk or ride bicycles will be enough to save us from the horrors of "labor saving devices and jobs that require limited physical effort." Societal norms must also be re-engineered at their root. Big Nanny says that, "ways to replace the use of cars as status symbols may also be needed." In a nod to Government Motors, Nanny notes, "Tradeoffs also must be balanced to avoid opposition from the automobile industry-including people that produce and sell cars and the people and communities for whom this industry is a key part of their economy."

All of these quotes come directly from the report, and they are but a tiny sample. This is really how these people think and talk. By cloaking themselves in the language of "science," they would have us believe that their recommendations are somehow above the political fray. If we are foolish enough to believe them, if we shirk our duty to speak out against the creeping tyranny of limitless government, if we forget who we are as a people, and if we respond to nonsense like this by meekly slouching off into the dark night of collectivism, then we deserve to be ruled by Big Nanny.

 

 

Bill Frezza is a fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and a Boston-based venture capitalist. You can find all of his columns, TV, and radio interviews here.  If you would like to have his weekly columns delivered to you by e-mail, click here or follow him on Twitter @BillFrezza.

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