Yesterday afternoon I caught up on emails from readers, which included some disturbing news articles -– like this one, about a boy being taken from his mother and put in foster care because he’s too fat:

An 8-year-old Cleveland boy has just become the poster-child for a sad new nadir in the childhood obesity epidemic. The third grader, who weighs more than 200 pounds, was removed from his mother’s custody because of what officials have deemed medical neglect.

The County said that the child’s weight gain was caused by his environment and that the mother wasn’t following doctor’s orders — which she disputes.
“This child’s problem was so severe that we had to take custody,” Mary Louise Madigan, a spokeswoman for the Department of Children and Family Services said. The agency worked with the mother for more than a year before asking Juvenile Court for custody of the child, she said.

Lawyers for the mother, a substitute elementary school teacher who is also taking vocational school classes, think the county has overreached in this case by arguing that medical conditions the boy is at risk for — but doesn’t yet have — pose an imminent danger to his health.”

So the state is taking the kid away for the sake of his health.  I wonder how separating him from his mother and forcing him to live with strangers will affect his mental health?  And if he’s still fat after spending a year or so with a foster family, will the state officials return him to his mother — and then resign?

Speaking of taking kids away, I also read this article:

Finnish officials have told a family of low-carbohydrate enthusiasts that their children would be taken into care if they failed to heed nutrition advice, provincial paper Iisalmen Sanomat reported Sunday.

Ursula Schwab, a clinical nutrition specialist at the University of East Finland, said at least one family had received such an ultimatum after parents ignored healthcare staff’s warnings about the dangers of an imbalanced diet for children.

Schwab added that she knew of parents who had put toddlers on so-called low-carb diets. “A strict low-carb diet is very fatty, and it suppresses hunger. If you down eggs and bacon for breakfast it will take hours before you can even imagine eating again.”

Well, for Pete’s sake, we can’t have kids downing bacon and eggs for breakfast and then not being hungry again for several hours! How are they supposed to become obese enough to be taken away from their parents for their own good?!

Finally, I read a New York Times puff piece praising the accomplishments of George McGovern -– including, of course, his inspiring leadership while establishing the Dietary Goals for Americans.

Head. Bang. On. Desk.

With those cheery bits of news in mind, I went to bed and had the strangest dream. It began with an aging politician snoring in his bed on Christmas Eve …

ZZZZZZ. ZZZZZZZZ.

“Woooooooh! Woooooooooh! ”

ZZZZZ – !!

“What? What’s that noise? Is somebody there?”

“Yes, Senator McGovern, somebody is there. And I’ve come for you. Woooooooh!”

“Hey! Enough with the Wooooooh stuff, okay? I was a bomber pilot in the war. I’m not afraid of ghosts.”

“You will be. Woooooooh!”

“Oh yeah? Well, if you’re a ghost, whose ghost are you?”

“Richard Milhous Nix—“

“AAAAAAAAAAGGHHHHHH!!!!”

“Geez, calm down, George. I’m not here to hurt you.“

“Well then, what the heck do you want?”

“To deliver a message. Let me make this perfectly clear:  Three more ghosts will enter your room tonight.”

“Ahh, your White House plumbers are back in action again, huh?”

“Not spooks, George.  Ghosts. And you’d better pay attention to what they show you.”

“Fine, I’ll pay attention. Now go away. I have nightmares about you as it is. Didn’t even win my own state, for the love of–”

“Okay, I’m going. You won’t have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore. Woooooooh!”

“Three more ghosts … bah, humbug! Just a bad dream, that’s all it was.”

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

“Geooooooorge! Geoooooorge!”

ZZZZZ—

“Now what? Who is that?”

“It’s me, George. Teddy Kennedy.”

“Teddy! Great to see you! What are you doing here?”

“I’m the Ghost of Government Past.”

“A ghost? But you’re all wet.”

“I drove here.”

“I see.”

“Come with me, George. We need to visit your past. There, look down. See?”

“Hey! That’s me, conducting my hearings on the Dietary Goals For America! Aw, boy, Teddy, weren’t we a bunch of optimists back then? So sure of ourselves, telling everyone else how to live right.”

“Indeed, Senator. You really put the ‘govern’ in McGovern, George.”

“Yup. We were so full of promise, always trying to do some good.”

“Yes, George, your intentions were good. No matter what else you see tonight, remember that:  your intentions were good.”

“Yeah, yeah, of course.  Huh … ”

“Something wrong, George?”

“I kind of forgot about this part. ‘A senator, unlike a research scientist, doesn’t have the luxury of waiting for every last shred of evidence to come in.’ Did I really say that?”

“Yes, George. But like I said, your intentions were good.”

“Of course.”

“I have to go now. Some of us are getting a game of touch football going. Have you ever tried that with ghosts you can’t actually touch? It’s weird. Goodbye, George.”

“Ted? Ted? Ahhh, I knew it. Back in bed. Just another weird dream. I really should get some sleep…”

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

“Hiya, George!”

“WHAT THE—Jerry? Jerry Ford?”

“The Ghost of Government Present, at your service!”

“Jerry, why are you here?”

“Well, the previous Ghost of Government Present had to resign, so—”

“No, no. Why are you here, in my bedroom?”

“Oh, right. I need to show you something. Come on, follow me. Down there. Take a look. ”

“Who are these people, Jerry? Why are you showing them to me?”

“That’s the Cratchit family, George. They’re having dinner.”

“Yes, I can see that. But why is the mother crying?”

“Because some government officials are threatening to take away Tiny Tim and send him to a foster home.”

“Which one is Tiny Tim?”

“That one.”

“Wow. Look, Jerry, I feel sorry for parents and all, but maybe they shouldn’t have nicknamed that kid ‘Tiny.’ He’s a blimp.”

“That’s why the government is threatening to take him away, George.”

“They’re taking him away for being fat? What is this, the old Soviet Union?”

“There’s no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and there never be will be under a Ford Administration!”

“Uh, Jerry–”

“Sorry. But I still don’t see why that line got everyone so upset.”

“Jerry, why don’t the parents just encourage Tiny Tim to lose some weight?”

“They’ve tried, George. They’ve tried over and over. As soon as they realized he had a weight problem, they put him on a strict low-fat diet with plenty of grains. Cereals with skim milk. Sandwiches with lean meats. Pasta, potatoes, rice. Crackers and fruit juice for snacks. No eggs, no cream, no butter. Just like you recommended, remember?”

“Well, if that didn’t work, they should have tried just feeding him less. I mean, come on, Jerry—”

“They tried that too, George. They’ve gone from doctor to doctor, and they always get the same advice: put him on a low-fat, calorie-restricted diet. Poor Tiny Tim has spent half his life feeling hungry, but getting fatter anyway.”

“Bah, humbug.  If they were truly following my advice—”

“They did follow your advice, George. But since Tiny Tim is still fat, the government health experts assume the parents are lying. That’s why they want to take Tiny Tim away.”

“But this can’t be! My intentions were good! Please, Jerry, tell me there’s still some way we can … Jerry? Jerry, where did you go?!”

“I’ve got to go, George. The previous Ghost of Government Present called and told me he needs a big favor of some kind.”

“Jerry, wait, I can’t see the family anymore! What happened to Tiny Tim? Jerry, come back! I promise I’ll do better if you just give me another chance!”

“There you go again.”

“Wha … Ronald Reagan?”

“Yes. Although I’m currently starring as the Ghost of Government Yet To Come.”

“This is a complete nightmare!”

“Well, now, that’s what they said about Bedtime for Bonzo, but I think over the years the critics have come to appreciate—“

“Ronnie, please, I need to know what happened to Tiny Tim. Take me back to the family.”

“Too late, George. You’re in the future now.”

“Then take me to the family now … I mean, here in the future.”

“You sure you want to see that, George?”

“Yes, Ronnie. I must.”

“Okay, come along with me. See? There’s the family, sitting down for dinner.”

“But Tiny Tim’s chair is empty! Did he … did he …”

“Die? No, George. He lost weight, his blood pressure went down, his glucose stabilized, his kidney function returned to normal, and he started concentrating better in school.”

“Then where is he?”

“The government took him away, George.”

“But why?”

“Well, take a good look at the family dinner table, George.”

“Steak, broccoli, butter, some kind of cream-based dessert … wait, where’s the bread, Ronnie? The pasta? The potatoes? They’re eating way too much fat.”

“That’s why the government took Tiny Tim away, George. The Cratchits stopped following your advice and Tiny Tim got better. But the government doesn’t like it when people stop following your advice, so they took Tiny Tim away.”

“But I never wanted any of this to happen, Ronnie! My intentions were—“

“—were good. Yes, I know, George. There you go again, assuming good intentions mean good results. Like I always said, sometimes government is the problem.”

“I refuse to believe this is my fault, Ronnie. It can’t be.”

“Then you need to ask yourself a question: People have been following your advice for 40 years. Are they happier now than they were 40 years ago? Are they leaner than they were 40 years ago? Are they healthier than they were 40 years ago? Are kids concentrating better than they were 40 years ago?”

“Well, no, but—”

“Then George, maybe it’s time you just admit your advice was wrong. I’ve got to go now. I’m expecting Nancy to join me any minute.”

“Ronnie, wait! Don’t go! Ronnie, please, I want to go back! I want to go back!”

BUZZ-BUZZ-BUZZ-BUZZ-BUZZ-BUZZ-BUZZ!!

“Wha? My own bed … 7:00 a.m. alarm … so it was all just a dream! There’s still time.“

CREEAAAAK.

“Excuse me, young man! Up here!”

“Yes, sir?”

“Do you know a family with a boy named Tiny Tim?”

“Yes, sir. They live just down the road.”

“Here, I’m tossing you down a hundred-dollar bill. I want you to go out and buy the biggest, fattest turkey you can find and take it to Tiny Tim’s house.”

“Will do, sir.”

“And some ham. And some bacon. And some eggs and butter. And a nice selection of green vegetables. Can you do that?”

“Of course, sir. Right away, sir. Merry Christmas!”

“Merry Christmas to you, young man. And may God bless us, every one!”

I received a record number of emails alerting me to Denmark’s new tax on fatty foods.  In case you haven’t heard about it, here are some quotes from one of the many news articles:

Denmark is to impose the world’s first “fat tax” in a drive to slim its population and cut heart disease.  The move may increase pressure for a similar tax in the UK, which suffers from the highest levels of obesity in Europe.

Starting from this Saturday, Danes will pay an extra 30p on each pack of butter, 8p on a pack of crisps, and an extra 13p on a pound of mince, as a result of the tax.

If the U.S. government ever starts taxing my mince, I’m going to start a revolution.

The tax is expected to raise about 2.2bn Danish Krone (£140m), and cut consumption of saturated fat by close to 10 percent, and butter consumption by 15 percent.

Which means it will raise the consumption of crappy industrial food products by around 25 percent.

“It’s the first ever fat-tax,” said Mike Rayner, Director of Oxford University’s Health Promotion Research Group, who has long campaigned for taxes on unhealthy foods.

Unhealthy foods?  I thought the tax was on saturated fat and butter.

“It’s very interesting. We haven’t had any practical examples before. Now we will be able to see the effects for real.”

So let me get this straight:  you have no practical examples – which means you have no evidence that taxing fatty foods is a good idea – but you favor imposing those taxes anyway?  Mr. Rayner, are you by any chance related to The Guy From CSPI?

I read some rah-rah comments by journalists who love the nanny state, but at least one news article raised an important issue:

Butter, milk, cheese, pizza, meat, oil and processed food are now subject to the tax if they contain more than 2.3% saturated fat.  Danish officials say they hope the new tax will help limit the population’s intake of fatty foods.

However, some scientists think saturated fat may be the wrong target. They say salt, sugar and refined carbohydrates are more detrimental to health and should be tackled instead.

Those scientists are two-thirds right:  sugar and refined carbohydrates are more detrimental to health.  But as for “should be tackled first” – ummm … why?  Why should governments be tackling any of our food choices?  Or as Jacob Sullum (who appeared in Fat Head) aptly put it in one of his essays, When the did the size of your butt become the government’s business?

Whenever the nanny-statists set out to provide another real-life example of the punchline We’re from the government, and we’re here to help, they never pause to ask themselves two crucial questions:

• Is this an appropriate task for government, and therefore an appropriate application of government force?
• Do government officials have the knowledge and expertise to make the correct decisions on this matter and therefore apply force in a beneficial way?

One of the many reasons I love living in Tennessee is that a surprising number of politicians here actually ask themselves question #1 before acting.  I stood up and cheered when I heard that our mayor warned an alderman that he would veto the alderman’s proposed bill to outlaw hurricane fences.  The alderman insisted hurricane fences are ugly.  The mayor agreed … but said telling property owners what kind of fence they can install on their own land isn’t a proper function of government.  What a concept.

Nanny-statists, of course, believe that restricting our freedom in order to bring about whatever benefits they imagine will follow is just fine and dandy.  New York City’s Mayor Bloomberg recently spoke at a WHO conference dedicated to creating new policies to battle obesity, diabetes and other “non-communicable” diseases – in other words, diseases you can’t transmit to anyone else. We’re not talking about stopping someone from spreading polio to unwitting victims here; we’re talking about governments attempting to protect people from their own free choices.  Here’s part of what Bloomberg had to say:

While government action is not sufficient alone, it is nevertheless absolutely essential.  There are powers only governments can exercise.

True … only government can legally threaten to commit violence against you and toss you in jail if you don’t do what you’re told.

Policies only governments can mandate and enforce.  And results only government can achieve.

True again … I don’t think private organizations alone could have foisted so much bad dietary advice on us that we’d end up with record numbers of adolescents developing type 2 diabetes.

I’ve been watching (in small chunks) the excellent Ken Burns documentary on Prohibition – the most famous example of our government trying to protect people from themselves.  In one of the opening sequences, several historians wondered how Prohibition ever could’ve passed in America.  As one of them noted, the Constitution was designed to guarantee individual freedom  – but then we passed a constitutional amendment that specifically restricted individual freedom.  It was, one of them noted, quite un-American, quite contrary to our national character.

Yes, it was … or at least it used to be.  Have you ever wondered why Prohibition required a constitutional amendment to become law?  If Congress wanted to ban the sale and manufacture of alcohol, why didn’t they pass a federal law and start enforcing it?

The answer is that Congress knew the law would be struck down as unconstitutional faster than you can open a bottle of beer.  It would’ve clearly violated the Constitution’s limits on federal power, and back in those days most judges had this wild notion that the Constitution actually means what it says.

(Warning:  sidebar political rant …)

Then along came a bull@#$% theory promoted by “progressives” that the Constitution is a “living, breathing document” – which means judges can just interpret it pretty much any ol’ way they choose.  A “living, breathing” Constitution is nearly worthless.  Any part of it can be lived and breathed out of existence by some nanny-state judge, as we’ve seen countless times now.

A couple of you have commented previously that you support the idea of a “living, breathing” Constitution because you don’t believe today’s government should be restricted by words written on a piece of paper more than 200 years ago.  Before you swoop in to repeat those comments now, I want you to answer a question:

Suppose as part of the “war on terror,” Congress made it a crime to publicly criticize the commander-in-chief or the military … you know, because the founders couldn’t have anticipated world-wide terror networks, ya see, so they couldn’t possibly have understood that someday an American citizen’s anti-war comments could show up the next day on YouTube or Al Jazeera and provide comfort and inspiration to people who want to kill American soldiers, so we have to re-interpret the Constitution to fit today’s circumstances.

Now … are you okay with that law?  Do you buy the “living, breathing” Constitution theory in this example?  Or would you still expect the First Amendment to protect your freedom of speech?  If so, why?  Why should the Constitution be interpreted literally when it places limits on government that you hold sacred, but become all fuzzy and living and breathing when it places limits on government that I hold sacred?  You can’t have it both ways.

(End of sidebar political rant … sort of.)

Obviously, since I believe the legitimate purpose of government is to protect our freedom, I don’t believe mandating health habits is a proper function of government.  I don’t believe governments should be telling us what to eat, where to eat, how much we should pay for what we eat, or how much salt can be included in the packaged foods we buy.  I don’t believe governments have any business requiring restaurants to post calorie counts on menus or to serve low-fat or low-sugar foods.

And I certainly don’t believe governments have any business telling citizens that they can’t buy raw milk, as happened recently in Wisconsin. (That judge explained to the citizen that we have no right to consume the foods we prefer, because we only have the rights the government grants us … which means the judge is a @#$%ing nanny-state idiot who would benefit from having a copy of the Declaration of Independence forcibly inserted in his colon – raw and un-pasteurized, of course.)

On to question #2 – If government is going mandate health habits, does government have the knowledge and expertise to make the correct decisions?

Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!

Thanks, after the political rant, I needed a good laugh.  Bloomberg is the genius who thinks government should force food manufacturers to reduce the salt content in their products, despite no evidence whatsoever that restricting salt would do diddly for our health.  Meanwhile, here’s what the World Health Organization is proposing:

Among the items included in the declaration are having governments intervene with the advertising of foods deemed unhealthy to “Promote the implementation of the WHO (World Health Organization) set of recommendations on the marketing of foods and non-alcoholic beverages to children, including foods that are high in saturated fats, trans-fatty acids, free sugars, or salt,” according to the document.

See the problem here?  You and I may agree that trans fats and sugar are bad for us, but some people still insist they’re harmless.  I believe saturated fat is good for us and grains are bad for us.  Other people believe it’s exactly the opposite.  You can cite evidence either way if you’re clever about it.  The difference is that I’m not interested in forcing my beliefs and my food choices on anyone else.  The nanny-statists are very interested in doing exactly that — and they don’t have the expertise to know for sure their choices are the best choices.

Governments should back off and leave us alone.  Our government has been telling us what to eat for 40 years now and subsidizing the foods it insists are good for us.  Does anyone believe we’ve gotten healthier as a result?

I received this email today from a Fat Head fan I happen to have met in person recently:

Tom,

I just got some news from my folks that made me think of you. I’ve heard how schools and governments are stepping in to enforce school lunch guidelines on parents (who are presumably too stupid to raise their own children), but this is the first time it’s hit close to home for me.

Short background: My six-year-old niece Megan started school yesterday, her first day of school. She was already scared and upset and crying. After lunch, she went into orbit, threw up everywhere because she was so upset, and ultimately had to leave school. My brother, who has been looking desperately for work, had to cancel a “sure thing” job interview to go get her because the school was sending her home. Here’s the word from my dad on what happened:

What prompted the whole issue yesterday was Meagan’s teacher taking her lunch, which she had brought from home, away from her.  David [my brother] had packed yogurt and fresh fruit, which Meagan likes.  Her teacher told her mother that the school has to ensure that the children have a nutritious lunch, so they took Meagan’s yogurt and fruit and insisted she eat a corn dog.  What a brilliant plan from a so-called “educator”.

I’m sure you see these every day, but it’s the first time it’s hit me. As the father of a two-year-old who just started preschool last week, this KILLS me.

I don’t know for sure this story is true, but like I said, I’ve met the guy who sent me the email, and he seems like an on-the-level type.  I certainly have no reason to doubt him.  And as we saw recently in Chicago, some schools have already taken it upon themselves to prohibit parents from sending kids to school with lunches the school administrators don’t approve of.

If the yogurt was the sugar-sweetened variety, it’s certainly not something I would pack for my daughters’ lunches — but that’s not the point.  The point is that what I choose to feed my kids is none of the school’s @#$%ing business. Their job is educate my children, not to dictate what meals they consume.

As for ensuring the kids are eating a nutritious lunch …a corn dog, really?!  That’s the nutritious alternative to yogurt and fruit?  A piece of processed meat, battered in wheat and corn starch, and fried in some horrid processed vegetable oil?

Just think, you probably grew up being told you lived in a free country.  Perhaps that was true at one time.

Do still believe it’s true today?

Some years ago, my fellow comedian Tim Slagle and I produced short comedy bits for a libertarian talk show.  In one bit, the health-care police arrested a man for sneaking coconut oil into a movie theater to put on his popcorn.  (I’ve embedded it at the end of the post.)

The trouble with using comic exaggeration to make fun of nanny-state busybodies is that reality keeps catching up.  What starts as parody ends up sounding like a straight news report some years later.

Just look at what the nanny-staters have been up to lately.  First, a councilman in New York City proposes banning toys from Happy Meals that don’t meet his definition of “healthy.”  Some commenters on the blog suggested I find a picture of that councilman.  So I did:

This is the guy who considers himself qualified to stand between me and McDonald’s so I don’t let a cheap toy lure me into buying meals he doesn’t think my kids should eat.  And he’s doing this (as Jacob Sullum would say) apparently without embarrassment.

Amazing.  The councilman should get together with Kelly Brownell and form a two-man comedy team called Morbidly Obese Men Who Know What You Should Eat. I’ll volunteer to be their opening act. I bet the back-stage spread before shows would be terrific.

Note to nanny-state busybodies everywhere:  if you’re tempted to legislate other people’s food choices and you happen to look like a character from a bad Eddie Murphy movie, it might be wise to just keep your mouth shut.  Yes, I mean that in more than one way.

On the heels of The Nutty Professor vs. Ronald McDonald in New York, today we learned that a public school in Chicago is banning lunches brought from home.  (This story produced an all-time record for the number of emails I received from blog readers.)  I’m sure you can guess the reason:  the school is just trying to make sure the little tykes are eating nutritious meals, doncha know:

Principal Elsa Carmona said her intention is to protect students from their own unhealthful food choices.  “Nutrition wise, it is better for the children to eat at the school,” Carmona said. “It’s about the nutrition and the excellent quality food that they are able to serve (in the lunchroom). It’s milk versus a Coke. But with allergies and any medical issue, of course, we would make an exception.”

Well, Ms. Carmona, it’s really generous of you to allow parents to decide what their kids will eat if there’s a medical issue involved.  But for everyone else, here’s how it works out:

1.    Your child is required by law to attend school.
2.    Your child is not allowed to bring lunch from home.

Therefore …

3.    Five days per week, nine months out of the year, the government will decide what your kid will eat for one-third of his meals.  If the government wants to stuff your kid with gluten, lectins, vegetable oils and fructose, that’s how it’s going to be – unless your kid is willing to skip lunch entirely.

What amazes me – and frankly scares me, too – are the people who don’t have a problem with this policy.

Parent Miguel Medina said he thinks the “no home lunch policy” is a good one. “The school food is very healthy,” he said, “and when they bring the food from home, there is no control over the food.”

Slamming.  Head.  On.  Desk.

Mr. Medina, if you think the school food is “very healthy,” here’s what you do:  tell your kids to eat the school food.  Then you’re making a choice as a parent … cool concept, eh?  In fact, it’s such a cool concept, perhaps we should extend it to other parents as well – including those who would rather pack a lunch for their kids, whether you approve of that lunch or not.

The pervasiveness of the “I think it’s a good idea, so let’s impose it on everyone” attitude in some cities these days just blows my mind.  It’s as if hardly anyone has ever heard the lovely phrase “It’s a free country.”  (Perhaps because in so many ways, it’s not anymore.)

In its never-ending quest to impose its dietary preferences on schoolkids, the USDA placed even greater restrictions this year on saturated fat, salt, and other nutrients that actually make a meal worth eating.  Here’s the result:

At Little Village, most students must take the meals served in the cafeteria or go hungry or both. During a recent visit to the school, dozens of students took the lunch but threw most of it in the garbage uneaten. Though CPS has improved the nutritional quality of its meals this year, it also has seen a drop-off in meal participation among students, many of whom say the food tastes bad.

I can’t quite figure out if the reporter actually sees the connection between “improved the nutritional quality” and “drop-off in meal participation.”  No matter, though.  The school is going to impose participation, so problem solved.  Nutty Professor vs. Ronald McDonald in New York, followed by a remake of The Shawshank Redemption in Chicago.

“Excuse me, are you Red?”

“Who wants to know?”

“Well, I heard you’re the guy who can get things for people.”

“Maybe.  What are you lookin’ to get?”

“The red ones … Red.”

“I don’t got any red ones.  I can get you uppers, downers, coke, smack or weed.  Take your pick.”

“No, not those red ones.  Red spicy ones.  You know, the corn chips.”

“Corn chips?  Look, newbie, I can get you all the drugs you want, but I’m not a magician, okay?  The principal catches you with a salty snack, we all wind up in the hole.”

Last year, when my daughter’s preschool informed us (reluctantly) that we had to pack a government-approved lunch on the day state inspectors were visiting, we decided to go ahead and put those oh-so-important grain products in her lunchbox.  The alternative was to stick a four-year-old in the middle of a fight she didn’t start.  But if the local elementary school even thinks about requiring my daughters to eat their awful cafeteria lunches, I will raise holy hell.

Fortunately, given the culture in this part of Tennessee, I’d probably have plenty of other parents joining me.  Some of them might even be packing … and I’m not talking about a lunch.

The Slagle-Naughton Report bit from long ago:

I’ve come up with an idea to solve the nation’s obesity issue:  outlaw all newspapers and magazines, including their online versions.

As the experts behind Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move!” campaign have informed us, too many Americans are fat because they spend too much time just sitting around — and let’s face it, reading newspapers and magazines is a sedentary pursuit.  Those greedy publishers, thinking of nothing but their own profits, are encouraging people to sit on their fat butts when they should be outside taking a walk or playing with their kids.

Predictably, the publishers will condemn my plan and insist that I haven’t produced any proof whatsoever that taking away newspapers and magazines will solve the obesity problem.  That may be true, but any measure that incentivizes consumers to spend less time reading and more time moving can only help.

I came up with my plan while reading an online article from TIME magazine explaining how some nanny-state politicians in New York City plan to follow the lead of nanny-state politicians in San Francisco by banning Happy Meal toys.  (I was, of course, jogging in place while reading the article, but I know better than most magazine readers.)

Well actually, they’re not banning all Happy Meal toys — only toys accompanying Happy Meals that don’t meet with the nanny-state politicians’ approval:

New York City Council member Leroy G. Comrie Jr. of Queens is leading the charge to ban kid-friendly toys from any fast-food meal that doesn’t meet certain nutritional standards, arguing that the plastic playthings serve to reward children for making poor food choices and undermine parents’ attempts to steer kids toward healthful options.

Mr. Comrie’s bill, which he is to introduce in the City Council on Wednesday, would restrict toys to meals that contain fewer than 500 calories and 600 milligrams of sodium, and in which less than 35 percent of the calories come from fat (making exceptions for nuts, seeds, peanut butter or other nut-based butters). In addition, the meal would have to contain a half a cup of fruit or vegetables or one serving of whole-grain products.

Awesome.  Fabulous.  Terrific.  Let’s use the coercive power of government to remove more brain-building saturated fat from Happy Meals and replace them with more gluten and lectins — and of course, some vegetables the kids can enjoy throwing in the garbage.

As a parent, I still haven’t figured out how including a toy with a Happy Meal undermines my attempts to steer my kids toward healthful options.  When my girls whine for a treat I don’t think they should have, I employ a technique passed down from my grandparents, to my parents, to me:  I say no.  I thought that’s what most parents do.  But apparently I was wrong about that:

“I think it’s important to find a way to make a healthy lifestyle palatable and exciting,” Comrie told the New York Times’ City Room blog, acknowledging that he was motivated to write the bill out of guilt for “grabbing Happy Meals” for his own kids.

Ah, I see.  Mr. Comrie wasn’t intelligent or disciplined enough to make smart choices for his own kids, so naturally this qualifies him to make decisions for mine.  Clearly the best way to prevent McDonald’s from undermining my parental authority is to have the government beat them to it.  Please, Mr. Comrie, stop me before I engage in another voluntary exchange.

The proposed law is a tribute to the idiocy of nanny-state politicians, but the article itself is also a tribute to the idiocy of the rah-rah journalists who cheer them on.  As evidence, I present these closing sentences:

Predictably, McDonald’s condemned the proposed measure. An executive for the company’s New York region said: “Taking away toys from kids’ meals won’t solve childhood obesity.”

That may be true, but any measure that incentivizes food makers to offer healthier options for consumers can only help.

Got that?  Taking away toys may not solve childhood obesity, but it can only help.  That’s all you have to say to convince a rah-rah journalist that restricting freedom in a supposedly free country is a good idea:  By gosh, it might just help … even if it probably won’t.

Outlawing newspapers and magazines may not make people leaner, that’s true … but anything that incentivizes them to be more active can only help.  Let’s get ‘er done!

While reading the article (and trying very hard not to bang my head on my desk), I followed a link to another article about a new report that ranks the nation’s counties in terms of health.  Here are some choice paragraphs:

A comprehensive survey of overall health county-by-county in the U.S. confirms a few things we already know to be true: being poor is bad for your health. So is having low education, not having a job and having less access to grocery stores and farmer’s markets for fresh food.

The County Health Rankings report, available online, ranks the health of more than 3,000 counties based on a wide variety of social, physical and environmental measures including but not limited to: adult smoking and obesity, premature death, numbers of uninsured, violent crime, car accident deaths, single parenthood, mammography screening rate, sexually transmitted disease, air pollution, numbers of low-birthweight babies born, income and education.

“It’s hard to lead a healthy life if you don’t live in a healthy community,” Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), which collaborated with the University of Wisconsin’s Population Health Institute on the report, said in a statement. “We hope that policymakers, businesses, educators, public health departments and community residents will use the Rankings to develop solutions to help people live healthier lives.”

Oh, I see … people engage in unhealthy behaviors because they live in unhealthy communities.  Glad we got the cause and effect straightened out.  Now the policymakers and public-health departments can jump in there and develop solutions to help people live healthier lives.  Maybe they’ll start by outlawing Happy Meal toys.

Out of curiosity, I followed the links to the county-by-county rankings in California and Tennessee.  In California, we lived in Los Angeles County, which is ranked number 26 out of 56 in the state.  Well, that explains a lot … I still have painful memories of my mediocre health back then.  Fortunately, we now live in Williamson County, which is ranked number 1 out of 95 counties in Tennessee.  Man, has my health ever improved.  As soon as we moved here, I started adopting the healthy habits of my new neighbors.

Strangely, though, there’s no shortage of McDonald’s restaurants around here that sell Happy Meals.  We’d better do something about that.  I’d hate to lose our number 1 ranking.

Several readers sent me links to articles about The Guy From CSPI suing McDonald’s for offering toys with Happy Meals.  My wife also left a copy of a newspaper article about the lawsuit on my desk this morning, perhaps hoping she’d see me do a spit-take with my coffee.  I was of course planning to write a post on the topic, but decided to create a video instead.

p.s. — Our internet was down for a good chunk of the day.  Turned out a connection outside the house was damaged by the snow and 15-degree nights we’ve had lately.  Sorry for the delay in responding to comments.