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Fat Chance New York Assemblyman Felix Ortiz recently proposed a tax on junk food and video games to combat obesity. Apparently, the assemblyman was full of himself. It shouldn’t take long for this proposal to collapse under its own weight. The fat tax may be the only idea worse than the flat tax. The bloated movement that Assemblyman Ortiz captained for fifteen Warholian minutes represents more than a pie-in-the-sky notion of what government can and should do. Rather, it represents a new low-water mark during a level-three national drought of common sense. The message from Ortiz and company is clear: Whatever you do, don’t look inward. Your girth is the result of a vast right wing conspiracy. Ironically, however, unless you’re on life-support or a POW, what you consume may be the one thing in your life you can control. Not that there isn’t a vast right wing conspiracy. There is one. It involves oil pricing, relaxed SUV mileage requirements, OPEC, CIA fall guys, Dr. David Kelly, Halliburton, and the Carlisle Group. But this fuss about fat is just water weight. There is no fat epidemic. You can’t catch a belly. You can, however, gradually swallow the fallacy that your health is someone else’s responsibility. Maybe that sounds heavy. Maybe even a bit laissez fair. But the truth is, the recent litigation against fast food chains is enough to turn sane people into libertarians. Unless we want to live to see Ben and Jerry sued separately, we need to resist the temptation to blame the food industry in much the same way we need to resist killing the rest of the Sara Lee chocolate layer cake at 3 AM. Sure, most of us would like tighter buttocks. Yet sometimes, the rear ends don’t justify the means. Liposuction, for instance, sucks. Yes, years of self-abuse pump right out like a Carvel vanilla swirl, but the procedure is about as wholesome as embalming. People have died on the liposuction table, which is, in the long run, a great way to shed pounds. Dealing with fat through liposuction is like dealing with migraines through lobotomy. Our beauty standards are incomprehensible and whacked-out. If Marilyn Monroe were alive and in her prime today, she wouldn’t make the cut for a Destiny’s Child video. Meanwhile, scientists are still looking for the “fat” gene. When they find it, then what? Time to start looking for the “litigious” gene. We may be able to save future generations by aborting trial lawyers. Until then, we all have a duty to wire shut the jaw of the next infomercial nutritionist who says eat all you want and still lose weight. That is an art only bulimics have mastered. We could be destroying and rebuilding three extra Arab nations a year on our fat-fighting budget. Which presents an interesting paradigm: How can we expect to change the mindset of entire Middle East civilizations when we can’t keep deep-fried Twinkies away from our own esophagi? Sadly, after decades of overblown claims and billions in impulse expenditures, the only solid advice the Pritikins, Tarnowers, and Susan Powders of the world have come up with is don’t consume more calories than you are willing to burn. We pay 2003 retail prices, but we’re stuck in the late 18th Century, when the French chemist Antoine Lavoisier came out with a little ditty called conservation of matter. Alas, there is no scientist, spokesperson, conglomerate, or Prozac-popping fitness guru who could ever change the following reality. Walk through a typical supermarket and look at the shopping carts. Half the people look like they’re shopping for a seven-year-old’s birthday party. To understand how we got here, check out any family portrait taken on the front porch pre-1965 or so. You might find one or two chubby cousins, but that’s about it. Probably no really obese relatives, and the rest look like they’re in basic training. Why? Because they walked places. We do not. Walking from TCBY to Radio Shack doesn’t count. Our forebears walked from home to the grocery, the fish market, the barber, a friend’s house. To mail a letter. Unfortunately, we have been following California’s lead for some time. In the 1960s, Californians set the tone by driving down the block to borrow a neighbor’s hedge clippers. Since then, California has given us Sirhan Sirhan, Charles Manson, the Go-Gos, Rodney King, OJ, and rolling blackouts. Good or bad—you tell me. This is a lesson I’ve learned personally. A couple years back, I bought a fixer-upper house. Hundreds of hours of scraping, spackling, sanding, painting, tile-cutting, and grouting have gotten me into the greatest shape of my life. Fortunately, there’s still work left, and in the time-honored tradition of Tom Sawyer, I’m now opening my doors to the public. The first year’s membership is free. Click here to rant back. |