Modern American government has been dispensing nutritional advice for quite a while, and enough of it has been misguided, erroneous or even harmful that you’d think there’d be a lesson of humility to be learned. Instead, we get a bossier-than-ever crop of new regulators like Thomas Frieden et al [Steven Malanga, City Journal]
Posts Tagged ‘nanny state’
Att’n Boston Mayor Menino
It doesn’t count as a “healthier choice” unless you actually let people choose. [Amy Alkon] And: Are we surprised that federal tax money is bankrolling the Boston mayor’s demonize-sweet-drinks kick? Not really, given that the federal government has been dishing out money to Michael Bloomberg’s administration in New York for similar purposes.
P.S.: “To encourage healthful eating, [a Chicago public] school doesn’t allow kids to bring lunches or certain snacks from home.” [Chicago Tribune]
U.K.: “Roadblocks set up to catch drivers smoking”
Authorities in Essex say they will check ashtrays and impose fines over smoking in company cars and commercial vehicles, which has been banned in England since 2007. [Telegraph via Stuttaford, NRO] We may need to develop a new terminology here: was Nanny herself ever so bossy and intrusive?
McDonald’s sued over Happy Meals
The Center for Science in the Public Interest, also known as Busybody Central, is filing a would-be class action under California consumer law over the hamburger giant’s marketing of fast food with toys. I have much more to say about that at the New York Daily News online opinion section (& linked at Above the Law, John Hayward/Human Events, Jammie Wearing Fool, Andrew Stuttaford/NRO “Corner”, Chris Robinette/TortsProf, Ira Stoll/Future of Capitalism), and am also quoted in the Reuters coverage. Earlier on Happy Meal law here, including a pointer to this Bruce Nye post from June on why CSPI’s claims are unlikely to prevail.
P.S. Happy to see that as of late Wednesday evening my piece is the most read, most emailed, and most discussed at the Daily News opinion site. Followups and links here.
New federal power to ban school bake sales?
“A child nutrition bill on its way to President Barack Obama — and championed by the first lady — gives the government power to limit school bake sales and other fundraisers that health advocates say sometimes replace wholesome meals in the lunchroom.” [Associated Press]
Booze-laced whipped cream
Alcohol and obesity risk, together: Jacob Sullum may have identified the next target of ire for the disapprovers of fun. [Reason “Hit and Run”] Related: “The Case Against Health” [Richard Klein, Chronicle of Higher Education]
Loco parentis: schools to send parents “your kid’s too fat” notes
Joining the obesity-as-public-health-issue crusade, Flagstaff, Arizona schools will begin weighing all students, after which they will send home warning notes to parents of kids who fail to conform to desired weight ranges. Apparently about half of students are expected to fall outside those ranges. [Arizona Daily Star, which likes the idea; Daily Caller]
DOTSec: Let’s disable cellphones in cars
Sacrificing not only passenger convenience, but also important elements of emergency response and crime prevention, to the Government That Knows Best: “Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said using a cell phone while driving is so dangerous that devices may soon be installed in cars to forcibly stop drivers — and potentially anyone else in the vehicle — from using them.” [Daily Caller, earlier] Post-furor update: DOT “currently has no plans” to do this.
Safer that way
A British town replaces an outdoor fireworks show with indoor images of fireworks on a projector screen, prompting critics to warn of a “cotton-wool culture” of child overprotection [Free-Range Kids]
“Whoppers with sleaze”
In today’s Washington Times: my take on the growing aggressiveness of “public health” officialdom in pushing scare campaigns about everyday consumption risks, including Mayor Bloomberg’s controversial new campaigns against sweetened drinks and (even more misleadingly) salty foods, as well as the FDA’s proposal to put corpse photos on cigarette packs. It begins:
The Puritans held that reminders of mortality had an edifying effect on the living, which is why they sometimes would illustrate even literature for young children with drawings of death’s-heads and skeletons. Something of the same spirit seems to animate our ever-advancing movement for mandatory public health. The Food and Drug Administration has just floated the idea of requiring cigarette packs to carry rotating pictures that would include corpses – yes, actual corpses – as well as close-ups of grotesque medical disorders that can afflict smokers.
New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s superactivist Health Department has begun public ad campaigns about the health risks of everyday foods, including a controversial YouTube video portraying soda drinkers as pouring globs of shimmery yellow fat into their open mouths and – just out – an ad showing an innocent-looking can of chicken-with-rice soup as bursting with dangerous salt. Whether or not you live in New York, you’re likely to be seeing more of this sort of thing because the mayor’s crew tends to set the pace for activist public-health efforts nationwide; the Obama administration, for example, picked Bloomberg lieutenant Thomas R. Frieden to head the influential Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Why should government use our own tax dollars to propagandize and hector us about the risks of salted snacks, chocolate milk or the other temptations of today’s supermarket aisle? The Bloomberg-Obama camp seems to feel that government dietary advice is superior to other sources of information we might draw on because (1) it’s more objective, independent and pure of motive and (2) it can draw on better science.
Whole thing here, and more on Bloomberg’s anti-soup crusade at the New York Post, Reason, and ACSH. More: My Food My Choice.