Quote Originally Posted by stinkyattic
Oh holy AAARGH...!!!!!
Childhood obesity isn't what we elect Congress to deal with. FUCK. Next someone is going to start bitching about a lack of hygiene and next thing you know they'll be making a law about how we should wipe our asses. The government is supposed to handle shit that is too large and too complicated for the people to deal with on a small scale- economic planning, foreign policy, infrastructure- not telling us what to feed our fucking children! This is totally ridiculous- yet ANOTHER red herring tossed out as something for us to fixate on while the school systems themselves are suffering. Yeah.. let's spend more tax money on mandated exercise programs, while the kids go home and vegetate in front of their fucking xboxes. What ever happened to riding Big Wheels with the other neighborhood kids?

I have to disagree StinkyAttic. I'm all for keeping the government out of our business, not telling us how to raise our kids, but they already do have a stake in food standards, as they should. We have institutions like the FDA for a reason (hate the fuckers, but a necessary evil). Food standards can be set up for large-scale, commercial food chains. Initiatives such as trans-fat bans, mandatory nutritional facts, and public education all come in to play. We don't let restaraunts put any old shit in their food like lead in the drinks, or nicotine in the candy. There are legal standards set by government (on the advice of the FDA) that mandate what can or can't go into our food, how informed we should be, what we allow in children's products, and what is an acceptable level of toxins or other harmful substances.


Whether it be healthcare, food standards, drug policy, or law, the government does have a say on public health.