Fatty Footprints: A Modest Proposal Based on Liberal GroupThink
By Jonathan Bean • Thursday January 20, 2011 4:06 PM PDT • 8 Comments
Fact: The USA is in the midst of a obesity epidemic.
Fact: Fat people are more likely to need health services, work fewer years, and pay less in taxes. They “free ride” by consuming scarce health care resources paid for by those who are healthy and thin.
PROPOSAL:
For their own good, and for the Public Good, the Departments of Health (state and federal) will calculate the “fat footprint” of every product that enters the stream of interstate commerce (by definition, everything in the universe). A new value added tax (VAT) will be added to all food items to cover health care costs and encourage healthy behavior on the part of those “irresponsible” fat people.
The government will also require all state and federal workers to work out at their local gym, eat food from an approved list, and reduce their weight to a level deemed adequate by F.A.T.S. (Federal Agency for Trimming and Slimming America).
This regulation will also extend to employees of businesses that contract with the federal government. Currently, F.A.T.S. is working to devise universal coverage beyond those groups. After all, one reason why children are “left behind” is that they are too fat to catch up with their peers. This must change.
Civil rights laws will be revised to add thin-to-normal weight people to the list of protected classes for affirmative action purposes. Employers must seek out thin-to-normal weight employees by casting a wide net in their recruitment. These workers will boost the bottom line of companies and make for a more socially just distribution of resources. The EEOC will supervise the formulation of goals and timetables to achieve real progress.
The tax code will extend credits to those who can document weight loss. Other candidates for tax subsidies: those with reduced cholesterol levels, lower blood pressure, and other markers of good health.
A half century ago, normal-weight president John F. Kennedy said, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” His promise lays unfulfilled next to the potato chips on millions of American couches.
Fifty years is too long, we know what you can, should, and must do for your country: lose weight. Let us move ahead and get the job done!
Tags: Education, Healthcare, Nanny State, Uncategorized 
I presume you’re waiting for us to deduce:
“Hey this is a Tragedy of the Commons Scenario. When stuff that people want isn’t owned or is ‘owned’ by everyone (in a vague Communist manner) then people are going take as much as they can and leave little for everyone else. Since healthcare is more or less ‘free’ people have no incentive to be healthy. But if healthcare was purely private and the obese could be forewarned how expensive their lifestyle becomes when their bodies start shutting down then they would rethink their behaviour and get into shape as soon as possible.”
Gil | Jan 20, 2011 | Reply
If FDR was willing to round up those of Japanese descent for the supposed good of the country, the current (Democrat) president should be willing to round up all the fatties. They can’t run fast and should be easy to catch.
Jim | Jan 21, 2011 | Reply
Part of this program is nearing reality already.
From the Winter 2010 Wise Traditions publication:
You thought carbon trading was all about reducing dependence on fossil fuel? Think again. A proposed trial of a personal carbon trading scheme will also aim at getting people to reduce consumption of “fatty foods” in the name of targeting obesity. The three-year project will involve giving everyone on Norfolk Island, a small island in the Pacific Ocean located between Australia, New Zealand, and New Caledonia, a card pre-loaded with “carbon units”. They will pay for their power and gasoline with carbon units-and from the second year also their food. “If people are thrifty”, says Professor Garry Egger, and organizer of the program, “and don’t buy a lot of petrol or power or fatty foods, they will have units to spare, which they can cash in at a bank. If they aren’t frugal and produce a lot of carbon and consume unhealthy [fatty] foods, then every year they will have to buy extra units” (www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au). Looks like carbon trading is morphing from a plan to “save the planet” into a social engineering and public policy scheme. If carbon rationing becomes widespread, the same system can be used to ration food and make government nutrition objectives mandatory.
D. Saul Weiner | Jan 21, 2011 | Reply
Surprised to see that there are not more posts here... of course what is always missing from the discourse throughout the media on this subject is the refutation of the notion that 1) these people are a burden on society (after all, they employ doctors etc, which increases the cash-flow. 2) a discussion at the root of the argument of such people drawing health-care dollars. After all, this implies that they are on welfare, which is the root problem. ie. if you pay for your own doctor bills, you are contributing to the health of our healthcare system, and if you are sucking at the teat of our health care system, it matters little whether you are fat or thin.
Thus, those proposing such foolish programs should instead work to solve the actual problem, which was created by the implementation of our welfare state. But that doesn’t make very good copy, and won’t garner headlines – so alas...
joe4liberty | Jan 25, 2011 | Reply
ITA with [this] “implies that they are on welfare, which is the root problem.”
Welfare diminishes human freedom and choice. Stir in the insane extension of Commerce Clause (and other provisions) and “anything goes” because the government is somehow involved (or might be involved with the wheat you grow in your back yard or the unhealthy habit you have).
Jonathan Bean | Jan 25, 2011 | Reply
Since it was the government’s “Food Pyramid” that we now know caused the obesity epidemic in the first place should give us pause before allowing the government to do shit about the “crisis.”
Recommending that 70% of our caloric intake should be from carbohydrates (even “healthy” ones) has caused a huge uptick in weight gain. “Fatty foods” do not create the body fat – Carbohydrates do. More and more research is finding that this is true.
You want to end obesity in this country? Eliminate the Food Pyramid (or at least flip it upside-down, so less than 30% of our calories come from carbs). End subsidies for Corn, Sugar, etc.
Notice that the market is now offering Low Carb meals, more salads (even fast food joints), and lots and lots of protein (i.e., MEAT!). If we get our eating right, and then just get up off the couch, we should fix the obesity problem...without the government’s help.
Ed Burley | Jan 25, 2011 | Reply
I enjoyed your ironical article Jonathan, but in the UK there have been serious calls for the NHS (the National Health Service) to refuse to treat ‘smokers’ unless they give up.
Given the fact that smokers contribute (through excise and Value Added Tax—VAT, which is a tax on tax in this case) more to the exchequer than the NHS costs in its entirety, this is an interesting proposition.
John Harrison | Jan 26, 2011 | Reply
“Welfare diminishes human freedom and choice.”
Um, no. Welfare allows people to pay their rent and feed their families if they haven’t got a job, which gives them a lot more freedom and choice than they would have if they were homeless and starving.
Danyl Strype | Oct 6, 2011 | Reply