Want to be Healthy? Do the Opposite of What the Government Recommends

by Will Grigg
Sep. 28, 2012

As is often the case with large-scale public problems, the ever-increasing rate of childhood obesity is a joint product of individual weakness and misguided government intervention.

For decades, the federal government has promoted a “food pyramid” that encourages heavy carbohydrate consumption. It has also subsidized the production of the toxic – and ubiquitous – sweetener called high fructose corn syrup.

Government-inflicted distortions in the agricultural economy have resulted in an abundance of relatively cheap and thoroughly unhealthy consumer foods. The ever-increasing cost of living – which results from the depreciation of the dollar – has made most households dependent on such unhealthy fare.

The military is now treating childhood obesity as a “national security” issue. The Pentagon’s concern with cultivating a new crop of trigger-pullers overlaps Michelle Obama’s Nanny State obsession with micro-managing the diets of other people’s children. As a result, school lunch menus are filled with low-calorie foods kids aren’t willing to eat – which is creating a black market in junk food.

As is the case with every other public problem, the first step to curbing the obesity epidemic is ignoring everything government says, and – to the greatest possible extent – getting it out of our lives.