One never knows what kind of nonsense Ivy League researchers will come up with when they’re on the government payroll. Far as we can tell the rule of thumb seems to be, the more preposterous the better.
Consider, for example, this story from National Journal:
As the Western world gets fatter and fatter, the solutions to slimming it down get ever more draconian. In Britain yesterday, the government issued guidelines saying “children under the age of 5, including babies who can’t walk yet, should exercise every day.” Today, in the States, a pair of Harvard scholars writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association advocate stripping away the custody rights of parents of super obese children. They’re for real!
“The boy’s not fat, he just has heavy bones” won’t fly as an excuse when the nanny state takes over.
“Despite the discomfort posed by state intervention, it may sometimes be necessary to protect a child,” said Lindsey Murtagh, a lawyer and researcher at Harvard’s School of Public Health. The study’s co-author, David Ludwig, says taking away peoples’ children “ideally will support not just the child but the whole family, with the goal of reuniting child and family as soon as possible.” Ludwig, an obesity specialist at Harvard-affiliated Children’s Hospital, said his eureka moment was when a 90-pound, 3-year-old girl entered his obesity clinic a number of years ago,” reports Lindsey Tanner at the Associated Press.
Nanny state, yes! Fatty state, no! Chubby chasers are gathering outside the White House to protest this outrageous infringement of their rights.
Source: National Journal
