The representative for a district with higher-than-average rates of obesity-related conditions will return from recess a week from Monday to reintroduce her Lifelong Improvements in Food and Exercise (LIFE) Act.
D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) will say on the House floor, according to prepared remarks, that her bill is intended to tackle a health problem “that cannot be remedied through the health care system alone.”
The LIFE Act would give the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention $25 million “for a coordinated national effort to reverse increasingly sedentary lifestyles and diets that are high in fat and sugar.”
That would be allocated to “train health professionals to recognize the signs of obesity early and to educate people concerning healthy lifestyles, such as proper nutrition and regular exercise; conduct public education campaigns about how to recognize and address overweight and obesity; and develop intervention strategies to be used in everyday life, such as in the workplace and in community settings.”
“The legislation is the minimum necessary to address our most important health care crisis,” Norton will say.
The bill had no co-sponsors in the 111th Congress and died in a health subcommittee. The renewed effort comes after a “60 Minutes” report this past weekend calling sugar a toxin and calls from some health officials to tax and regulate sugar like tobacco.
“I urge my colleagues to join me in support of this important legislation to mobilize the country now, before entirely preventable health conditions, which often begin in childhood, overwhelm the nation’s health care system,” Norton will say.
Yes, please, tell me what I am allowed to eat, when and how much to exercise, which clothes to wear, where to live, which car I am allowed to drive.
It’s re-education camp’s time !
And we want to learn how to sing hymns to the Great Helmsman who won the Long March through the universities and the media and defeated the fake Freedom of America !
And every house must have Obama’s portrait in the dining room !
And his portrait on the flag too, remember? Instead of the stars, which fail to account for the additional 7-8 states he cited.
And make up watch “news” segments like “Chairman Obama leads the happy workers in song.” That was so cool when Mao did it.
Dining room? Aren’t you being a bit fanciful? They will be abolished in favor of forced ” sharing” of home space. A dining room will be over the maximum allowable living space mandated under the new Section Eight Housing Guidelines. And you will be required to share your home which will remain in your name for tax purposes only. Of course the portrait of Obama still must be displayed prominently.
It’s still called a dining room at the super max.
I’d like to know what technique Michelle uses to sneak up on her food. That would be a handy skill.
“train health professionals to recognize the signs of obesity early”
As if doctors and nurses don’t already know these things.
How about training citizens to “recognize the signs of government parasitism”? But I’m not sure if Eleanor Holmes Norton more resembles a tapeworm or a lamprey.
Perhaps … a fluke?
Maybe she can call it something like the Individual Responsibility clause?
I learned early in life that you can measure the tranquility and order in one’s life by the triviality of criticisms.
At some point one learns that awful truth about Fed. gov’t: it hates to declare a thing done and instead will go on and on about decreasingly important things. America will always have a new layer of problems of increasing nonsense but treated as if it is tuberculosis.
There is only one way to fight this: de-fund it. Restrict gov’t spending to the point where the insanities they currently spend our money on are restricted to zero. Gov’t compartmentalizes monies and it’s incomes so that they always claim social security or children are going to pay during a pinch when in fact obscure and stupid programs are untouched. It’s obvious our gov’t has too much income or is overspending.
25 million to tell adults not to be fat. How much will it cost to have us wear helmets outside the home, because it’s coming.
I propose a flat 10% income tax (or sales tax if you prefer).
If it’s good enough for God, it’s good enough for the government.
See my recommendation here http://www.redstate.com/derkrieger/2012/03/04/federalism-and-congressional-term-limits/
I do think there are a lot of overweight up to morbidly obese people in this country, but I don’t know where there is anything that states has the government has the right to mandate that they lose weight. I aree that it would be better for them to lose that weight, but just how do we propose to enforce it? Do we put them in jail and feed them on bread and water until they are the weight that the government has decided they should be? Everyone makes poor choices at some time or other. Surely they know that their weight could cause them to have many health problems up to and even shortened life spans and death. It is not a choice the government can make or enforce. And that kind of government intrusion sounds more like the beginning of a nanny state to me and could open the doors to more interference in our lives. e.g. Nineteen Eighty-Four.
it is the beginning of a Marxist state. Go look up what that really means. Communism IS attacking this country, and they have made GREAT PROGRESS, as they are almost done, preparing us for the elimination of 90% of the population of the US. As per plans laid in 1956 in the manifesto. McCarthy was probably more right than we knew. How do we stop OUR government when a person, elected, DRUNK ON POWER goes way too far? How do we stop the evil?
God help us. The only way it seems.
Check the link, watch the videos, very good explanation as to what is really happening in the US today.
http://www.morningstartv.com/oak-initiative/marxism-america
…and calls from some health officials to tax and regulate sugar like tobacco.
Ah. A new tax. Now we get down to the root of the thing.
and develop intervention strategies to be used in everyday life, such as in the workplace and in community settings.
Gov’t sanctioned bullying of adults. Fabulous.
This is just getting on my nerves. First it was healthcare law, then it was take God out of everything, now its if you do not wear a size 5 you are obese and are not acceptable. Does anyone see a pattern here? All you ugly, fat, Christian, rich people just take a hike…Can we get rid of Nancy Pelosi because she is old now? I mean she is in her 70′s and its only down hill from here.
embrace marksism, it has arrived in our government.
Well, if Obamacare does pass the Supreme Court, this will just be part of Obamacare, in which case the government will be able to tell you what to eat, how to eat it, and when to eat it. Hmmm, reminds me of another country, like North Korea perhaps?
I don’t think this was what the Founding Fathers had in mind.
But look how slim and trim the North Koreans are. /sarc
Don’t health car professionals have a scale and a tape measure to check for signs of obesity? Do we really need ANOTHER gov’t program for our own good?
Maybe they want to look out for people who still look thin but are secretly “approaching maximum density.”
If obama has her way, we’d ALL better like lobster and truffles, in everything, including mustard.
Defeat these idiots and lets get our country and our freedoms back.
I for one am glad that somebody HAS FINALLY DECIDED TO HIGHLIGHT OBESITY AS A NATIONAL PROBLEM. No one has ever done this before, and at $25 million it’s a bargain. Norton must be commended for the foresight and courage to bring up an issue which the entire country has chosen to ignore.
While we’re at it, why don’t we have a TV show called “Biggest Loser” to dramatize this issue, and let’s have the First Lady campaign against childhood obesity. We can get a health-conscious sandwich chain to find fat guy named Jarod so he can lose weight eating their sandwiches . . . etc., and so forth.
Rep. Norton is a prescient genius, isn’t she?
I liked Jocelyn Elders’ idea of teaching children how to masturbate more than I like Norton’s idea. It showed more imagination.
It’s a treat to beat your meat ’til you’ve got a drippy pud
It’s a treat to beat your meat ’til you’ve got a drippy pud
It takes a trained health professional to tell if someone’s fat? It sounds like they’re going to recruit their trained professional staff from the same talent pool that has given us the TSA.
And the years of schooling that one must go through to become a licensed “health professional” in the first place apparently doesn’t cover “body fat.” Nurses, PAs, doctors–they should feel insulted.
Apparently they are NOT trained in the subject of body fat. Every time any doctor or nurse has mentioned that I am overweight, they have done so based only on measuring my height and weight and looking up the BMI index on the standard chart. But this number does not, nor can it, measure body fat. I’d like to know what my percentage body fat is, so I know just how fat I am and what goal I should aim for. These so-called professionals just become slack-jawed when I ask the question. I have to go to my trainer at the gym to get that answer.
And I still run into many medicos who will recommend low fat diets, which have pretty much been debunked by now. But that just goes to show that doctors are not scientists, and most of them simply parrot the dogma that was popular when they were in school.
… a trained unionized government health care worker…..
Just like most legislation, this is a feel good measure that doesn’t address the root problems at all. Do health care professionals really not know how to tell if a person is obese? I can pick ‘em out from halfway across Wal-Mart. Do most adults not know how to maintain a healthy body weight? Eat healthy food and exercise, I’ve always been told. Either that or miracle pills advertised in banner ads. I forget which one.
Most adults I know who are overweight honestly want to lose the weight. The problem is that life gets in the way. It’s different for everyone, but it seems some of the biggest impediments for people I know are things like finding the time to exercise and prepare healthy meals (fast meals are usually fatty meals) or working at a desk job where all productivity occurs while sitting at a computer.
It doesn’t help that our infrastructure is built around driving. Most roads in my community don’t have sidewalks and the roads are narrow and busy. Walking or riding a bike somewhere is dangerous business.
If we want to tackle the obesity problem, we need to start with societal and infrastructure problems like this, rather than using other peoples’ money to tell healthcare professionals what they already know.
Man, but you need another revolution.
We do have social issues that are affecting well being but another government “intervention” will not address the fact that obesity is increasing around the world as technology and cultural tastes change eating and exercise habits. Maybe this is evolution. Personally, I don’t like to eat “food product” and find most technological entertainment tiresome. But I’m old.
One solution for obesity is to get the government out of the health insurance market, stop distorting the private market and let insurers set rates based on a patient’s actuarial risk. A fat slob who sits on the couch all day stuffing his face with Doritos should have a health insurance premium that reflects his higher risk. A guy like me who stays fit, doesn’t smoke, and eats well shouldn’t have to subsidize the premiums of a fatty by paying equal premiums.
An analogy to this is a Honda owner paying the same premium as a Porsche owner. The Honda owner has less risk of theft, speeding, accidents, et al so should, and does, pay a lower premium. Why not in the health insurance market?
If the fat are forced to pay higher rates then maybe some of them will change their behavior to get lower rates. If not, at least they’re paying their own way.
Another suggestion is to stop subsidizing the production if sugar and corn and allow the market to set the price. A higher price may (I have my doubts) cause people to consume less as the prices increase. What is stupid is for the Feds to subsidize sugar growers and then tax sugar consumers.
Actually, you’re partially correct here. Part of this obesity problem is directly related to a tariff on sugar imports that has been in place for years so that American sugar farmers make more money on domestic sugar. Because of this inflated price of sugar, food manufacturers across the board quit buying good sugar, and started sweetening virtually everything with corn syrup, which has a different molecular structure and is broken down by the human system very differently. A great deal of the obesity in this country can be traced directly to the widespread use of corn syrup as a sweetener.
In other words, the normal, unforeseen consequences of government intervention in the market.
When did our waistlines fall within the responsibility of the federal government? I must have overlooked that part of the Constitution.
That would be allocated to “train health professionals to recognize the signs of obesity early…”
They need to be trained to identify fat people?
I saw the 60-Minutes segment. While only a fool would say one need not be circumspect in sugar consumption, calling a sugar a “toxin” is being inflammatory without being illuminating.
Many things consumed to excess will kill you, including ordinary table salt and probably water. But if water is both a toxin and essential to life, what are we poor schmucks to do?
Yes, there are documented cases of people who have died from an overdose of ordinary water. (One rather sad case occurred to a contestant on some sort of game show, apparently to see who could drink the largest amount of water in a short amount of time.) But that in no way makes water a toxin. It just goes to show that too much on anything can kill you.
What was it a Supreme said the other day? Can the state force you to eat brocolli?
Do we still get to drink koolaid?
It sounds to me as if the good Delegate Norton is afflicted with an excess of that toxic di-hydrogen monoxide on the brain.
I plan to follow Ms. Norton’s good example. When she exercises, I’ll do so too. When she eats healthy so will I. Of course, that means I’ll be doing neither….
larda$$ B!tch.
Add up what Americans already spend voluntarily on diet and related products amd services. Surely, 25 million is paltry by comparison. It wouldn’t even pay for all of the free coverage given by networks. Both of my chilodren in their thirties are into triathelons. That beats the middle age spread very well.
Who cares what your kids are? I am not planning on running a marathon, am a healthy weight and if you think for one second I am going to play this food control game you have another thought coming.
I DARE you to tell me what to eat.
i’m just waiting to see which one of our congressional clown posse introduces a bill to ban di-hydrogen monoxide as a toxic chemical.
Until they learn to pronounce it, nothing to worry about.
All I can say is god help them, I dare to let ONE PERSON tell me what to eat in my workplace.. just one. The rage I unleash will set a record.
My response to all this government nazi crap : MAKE ME, GO AHEAD, MAKE YOUR MOVE.
Screw them screw them all. BTW: I weigh under 145 at 62 so my attitude has nothing to do with being obese. If you are happy with yourself being obese, skinny, or in between, then I’m happy for you. If you are not, then change something. Change can be an exciting time, but only if it comes from within yourself, not the nanny food nazis.
With a name like”Life Act” one might think it was a government intention to protecting life of people, like unborn babies in the womb that would be protected from demigod, social engineers. Of course it has nothing to do with protecting life, only a discriminatory tax on freedom of chioce. I like the point about dropping the subsidy for corn and sugar. We so need to revise tax code to take all the discriminatory tax power away from the govenment.
Keep remembering that Obama was elected by only 30% of registered voters. There was a 58% turnout and of the people who actually voted, 52% voted for Obama. Multiply 0.58 and 0.52 and you get 0.30. Just 30% of registered voters saddled us with Obama. Forget about the polls and just vote. He has not gained followers.
I would like to see them pass a “Get a Life Act” which tells congress to get a life and stop intruding into people’s lives.
Oh, but it is for your own good!!! Or…It’s for the chiiiiiiiiildren!! Oh, heck no! It is NONE of your business what I eat, how I eat, what weight I am or how out of shape I am. Get out of my life, you Commies!!!!!!
There is no end to the regulation of your life, and the infringements of your freedom, that the Democrats will advance. They are truly totalitarians.
LIFE Act – an excellent idea! Goose-Stepping for grade-schoolers!
She is just a “delegate” not a Senator or Represenative. She is a living reason the District should never become a state. The only reason she is there is that she is female, black and fashionably stupid.
I used to shout at the government; Get Out of My Bedroom!
Nowadays, I have to shout; Get Out of My Kitchen!
“train health professionals to recognize the signs of obesity early”
Unless all health professionals are struck blind tomorrow, they already recognize “the signs of obesity” just like everybody else does: If you LOOK fat, chances are about 100% that you ARE fat.
“and to educate people concerning healthy lifestyles, such as proper nutrition and regular exercise”
This is as redundant as “wash, rinse, and repeat” labeling on shampoo. Really, who DOESN’T understand that if you want to lose weight you need to eat less and exercise more?
“conduct public education campaigns about how to recognize and address overweight and obesity”
Again, who DOESN’T already know FAT when they see it, and know that eating less and exercising more are how to get rid of it?
“and develop intervention strategies to be used in everyday life, such as in the workplace and in community settings.”
OK, here’s a smidgen of new information: eat less and exercise more…in the workplace and in your community! Wow, I’m really glad they clarified that.
Problem solved, $25 million saved.
Internment camps for the obese would be most effective. Otherwise, individuals might get the notion that they have individual rights and liberties.