Monday, February 04, 2008

Good Idea, Bad Idea - Ban Serving Obese Customers

In today's edition of Good Idea/Bad Idea:
Good Idea: Educating people about healthy eating and activity, and why it's necessary for body health to be active in a variety of ways (cardio, strength training, etc).

Bad Idea: proposing a law to ban restaurants from serving obese people.

Republican Rep. John Read of Gautier, Mississippi has done just this - but assures everyone that he's just doing it to raise awareness of Mississippi's expanding waistline. Mississippi 'boasts' one of the largest populations in the country, as well as one of the fastest growing in size - something that's a concern to everyone from doctors and health policy advocates to the politicians in charge of things.

But actually pushing a bill in order to highlight the issue, when it's guaranteed not only that the bill will be vetoed right out of there, is nothing more than a waste of tax money that should be going for other issues - like, say, nutrition education programs. Or maybe that's just me...
-Kelly

2 comments:

SabrinaW said...

Some people are of the philosophy that laws are to be used as moral statements. I am not one of them.

I would say more, but then I would sound terribly vicious and partisan, and there will be plenty of that already since this is Super Tuesday.

Kelly Hills said...

Haha, Sabrina - I didn't even realize it was Super Tuesday when I posted that. And I was going to try to stay away from political posts, too... woops!

(And thanks for the reminder - time to find my local voting station!)