Passing a law to require calorie counts on menus isn't going to do a whole hell of a lot of good to end an obesity epidemic that really doesn't exist. Especially since it doesn't apply to every restaurant in the city. It only applies to those who have more than 15 locations nationwide. So all those local restaurants, that have one, or maybe two, locations don't have to do this. I'm sorry, if you're going to require this of fast food restaurants, I think it should be applied to every restaurant, no matter how many/few locations they have, across the board.
On the pro side, NYC Health Commissioner Thomas R. Frieden, obviously: "Obesity and diabetes are the only major health problems that are getting worse in New York City," he said Tuesday. "Today, the Board of Health passed a regulation that will help New Yorkers make healthier choices about what to eat; living longer, healthier lives as a result.
Ok, I have a couple of big problems with this. Obesity is not a health concern, it's not a disease, it's a variation on a body theme that people have little to no control over. They say it's to help people that are fat and/or diabetic. Well, I have news for them. Calorie counts don't do a whole hell of a lot to help diabetics control their blood sugar (and controlling blood sugar is what keeps diabetics from getting those nasty complications as quickly as they would if their blood sugar wasn't controlled). What diabetics need to see on menus are carb and fiber counts. I don't know about other fast food places, but McDonald's has all the nutrition information that you find on boxes in grocery stores on their boxes that food items come in (like french fries, McNuggets, chicken club sandwiches, etc). So if DH and I decide to eat at Mickey D's, we can look on the box and see how many carbs and how much fiber he's getting and know how his blood sugar is going to react to it. I don't give a rat's ass about how many calories are in what we're eating, I care about carbs and fiber. THAT'S what I want to see listed.
On the con side was NYRA spokesman Chuck Hunt, who noted: "It's been done in supermarkets for 13 years. Has it worked? Has obesity declined?"
Ummm, no, since this obesity hysteria is pretty much manufactured to sell more weight loss drugs/diets/surgery. You can put the information out there, and people will use it IF they think it's important to them.
Others called it nanny-state administration at its worst, or said consumers had the responsibility to use a little common sense when it came to their meal choices.
Since when is it a moral imperative that consumers have to use common sense when it comes to meal choices? Whose business is it what people eat? And just who in the hell gets to decide what common sense about meals is? Who sets up the standards and how the fuck are they going to enforce them? Police state? Yeah, riiiight. The government can't afford to repair/replace our deteriorating infrastructure, they can't afford to extend Medicare/Medicaid to all the poor people who really need it, but they can afford to enforce laws designed to regulate what we eat and how much we weigh and how healthy we are? Don't make me laugh.
I still say that every rat bastard out there who wants to force every fat person to lose weight needs to have their height, weight, and BMI published for the world to see. I want to know how many of those asshats are overweight and obese according to that damned BMI standard by which they hold the rest of the world accountable. Then I want to see them say that anyone who is overweight or obese, according to BMI, needs to diet or get WLS. How many of them would fall into that category and how loud would they be screaming if it was pushed on them and they were bombarded with all the fat hatred? How many of them would be saying "But I'm healthy, and I'm fit, so my overweight/obese BMI number doesn't really mean anything"? Sure, it doesn't mean anything for them personally, it just applies to everyone who isn't them.
No comments:
Post a Comment