Nanny State May Soon Ban “Obese People” From Eating At Restaurants

[Richard]

“…shall not be allowed to serve food to an person who is obese.”

By Bill Jablonski~Puppetgov

The incremental slide into a controlled “nanny state” continues in America and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care.

Factories rain millions of pounds of toxic pollution into the air we breathe and subsequently poison our water supplies but heaven help you if you want to unwind with a smoke to accompany your drink at the local bar. You see, Big Brother thinks that is unhealthy and now socially unacceptable. The government has taken on the role of “behavior police.”

Most non-smokers seemed to rejoice at the decision unaware that it will be just a matter of time before they too are told how to behave as well. Something they enjoy may soon be outlawed.

Take for example the Associated Press article which reported a St. Louis-area town that is actually considering a bill that would ban swearing in bars.

This harkens back to Tipper Gore’s crusade against the music industry with the PMRC, a music censorship organization. The problem then and now is who decides what words are acceptable and which one are not. In 1985, musician Frank Zappa took on the PMRC when he testified before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. Zappa later went head to head with the hosts of CNN’s Crossfire discussing music and “acceptable & unacceptable words.”

The Chicago city council decided that goose liver or foie gras is no longer a choice for diners in the windy city. If they are really concerned about the inhumane force-feeding of birds then why did they stop there? Why not go after the much larger and real problem of Factory Farming?

Now there is a bill that was recently introduced in Mississippi’s state legislature that would prohibit restaurants from serving people the government determined to be obese.

If passed, House Bill 282 would require restaurants to follow guidelines set by the state’s health department to determine a customer’s obesity, banning those considered too fat to serve. A copy of the bill can be read here: HB 282-1.

People laughed years ago when they said they would outlaw smoking in bars. Politicians did it and they will continue to try and tell all of us how to behave unless we finally start standing up for our individual rights and tell the government to keep it’s nose out of our personal business.

How free of a society are we if our elected officials dictate our so-called freedoms. Question is, when will we have had enough?

DIRECT VIDEO LINK

http://blog.puppetgov.com/?p=1585

[Astrojewels]

Interesting article Richard and I thought we had some crazy laws but you guys in the US are becoming insane with do’s and don’ts, awhile ago I watched this report on a young Australian that was studying in the US, he threw a snowball at a classmate, she sued him, he spent a night in jail and had to go through court! After all that she dropped the charges, probably his family compensated her, but it is stuff so stupid like that and the general public over there wanting to sue everyone for everything.
When I was there, people said don’t do this and don’t do that, you will go to jail, what, are you serious.
In my opinion most blokes that go to the pub like to have a beer, smoke cigarettes talk a whole lot of gibberish foul language to their mates, release a bit of tension and its over.
They are trying to combine the male-female energy and make us all equal with a tone of androgyny, in our minds anyway, we are not equal and I personally do not want to be equal with a man, and turn us into sheep but the general population must take some blame for all these laws because more and more people are becoming citizen police.

[Richard]

Yes we do have a lot of crazy laws in the US. I thought these health laws were being passed because it saved the government tax money. I just came across a story the says the opposite.  

Fat people cheaper to treat, study says

By MARIA CHENG, AP Medical Writer
1 hour, 5 minutes ago

Preventing obesity and smoking can save lives, but it doesn't save money, researchers reported Monday. It costs more to care for healthy people who live years longer, according to a Dutch study that counters the common perception that preventing obesity would save governments millions of dollars.

"It was a small surprise," said Pieter van Baal, an economist at the Netherlands' National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, who led the study. "But it also makes sense. If you live longer, then you cost the health system more."

In a paper published online Monday in the Public Library of Science Medicine journal, Dutch researchers found that the health costs of thin and healthy people in adulthood are more expensive than those of either fat people or smokers.

Van Baal and colleagues created a model to simulate lifetime health costs for three groups of 1,000 people: the "healthy-living" group (thin and non-smoking), obese people, and smokers. The model relied on "cost of illness" data and disease prevalence in the Netherlands in 2003.

The researchers found that from age 20 to 56, obese people racked up the most expensive health costs. But because both the smokers and the obese people died sooner than the healthy group, it cost less to treat them in the long run.

On average, healthy people lived 84 years. Smokers lived about 77 years, and obese people lived about 80 years. Smokers and obese people tended to have more heart disease than the healthy people.

Cancer incidence, except for lung cancer, was the same in all three groups. Obese people had the most diabetes, and healthy people had the most strokes. Ultimately, the thin and healthy group cost the most, about $417,000, from age 20 on.

The cost of care for obese people was $371,000, and for smokers, about $326,000.

The results counter the common perception that preventing obesity will save health systems worldwide millions of dollars.

"This throws a bucket of cold water onto the idea that obesity is going to cost trillions of dollars," said Patrick Basham, a professor of health politics at Johns Hopkins University who was unconnected to the study. He said that government projections about obesity costs are frequently based on guesswork, political agendas, and changing science.

"If we're going to worry about the future of obesity, we should stop worrying about its financial impact," he said.

Obesity experts said that fighting the epidemic is about more than just saving money.

"The benefits of obesity prevention may not be seen immediately in terms of cost savings in tomorrow's budget, but there are long-term gains," said Neville Rigby, spokesman for the International Association for the Study of Obesity. "These are often immeasurable when it comes to people living longer and healthier lives."

Van Baal described the paper as "a book-keeping exercise," and said that governments should recognize that successful smoking and obesity prevention programs mean that people will have a higher chance of dying of something more expensive later in life.

"Lung cancer is a cheap disease to treat because people don't survive very long," van Baal said. "But if they are old enough to get Alzheimer's one day, they may survive longer and cost more."

The study, paid for by the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sports, did not take into account other potential costs of obesity and smoking, such as lost economic productivity or social costs.

"We are not recommending that governments stop trying to prevent obesity," van Baal said. "But they should do it for the right reasons."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080205/ap_on_he_me/obesity_cost&printer=1;_ylt=AqttKotb1NK127rOMWU2R6xa24cA

[Astrojewels]

They do not want people to stop smoking or deal with health problems, here in Australia cigarettes have a 100% tax on them, so half of every packet sold goes to the government, they have introduced all these laws of where you can and can not smoke but people are not going to stop. It’s the same for the heath industry; it’s all a scam between the pharmaceutical, doctors, and the government. They want everyone on some sort of medication, I can go to the doctor and tell him what’s wrong with me, and he will just give me pills, he will not ask questions of my mental state etc, because every prescription gives him points to getting his bonus reward at the end of the year.
The GP’s are booked everywhere you go; the pharmacies are big business not like years ago when they had one full time and one junior, now they are big massive stores with lots of staff.
How is the attitude of van Baal’ in this article, and his quote of lung cancer being a cheap disease because they do not last.

[Richard]

The US is making tons of tax money from cigarettes too. Michigan makes $2.00 a pack. So I can imagine the government wouldn't want people to quit smoking because they would lose millions in tax revenue.

[Astrojewels]

The problem is Richard, a law begins mostly with logic reason- like smoking in restaurants you have to think of those who do not smoke, and be respectful, but then the one law extends to ridiculous control, like taking the smoking ban to bars, don’t go, I don’t go to pubs or bars because I personally do not being around environments with alcohol or seeing people drunk, but that does not mean people should not be allowed to do it.
Or this topic, who decides the limit of the obese person, and who gets to refuse the overweight person in a restraunt, they will just go elsewhere or go home and at the end of the day, you are isolating the people that are overweight and making the matter worse. We need laws but we do not need to control every moment of society and that is the way it is going.