Saturday, February 02, 2008

Bill would make it illegal to feed the obese

Article here

Three legislators want to make it illegal for restaurants to serve obese customers in Mississippi.

House Bill No. 282, which was introduced this month, says: Any food establishment to which this section applies shall not be allowed to serve food to any person who is obese, based on criteria prescribed by the State Department of Health after consultation with the Mississippi Council on Obesity Prevention and Management established under Section 41-101-1 or its successor. The State Department of Health shall prepare written materials that describe and explain the criteria for determining whether a person is obese, and shall provide those materials to all food establishments to which this section applies. A food establishment shall be entitled to rely on the criteria for obesity in those written materials when determining whether or not it is allowed to serve food to any person.

The proposal would allow health inspectors to yank the permit from any restaurant that "repeatedly" feeds extremely overweight customers.

The bill, written by GOP Rep. W. T. Mayhall Jr., was referred to the Judiciary and Public Health committees, but The Jackson Free Press doesn't expect it to garner much support in the statehouse.

About two-third of Mississippians are considered overweight or obese, according to a recent analysis of federal health data.


This means that restaurants cannot serve overweight customers at all. Since I'm obese, I do have a dog in this fight. So what the hell - I have to starve myself before I'd get served in MS? Fat people get hungry too. Yeah, this beautimous bit of legislation is unlikely to pass, but it sure looks like socialism is alive and well to me.

In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;

And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;

And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;

And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up."

Martin Niemöller

2 comments:

threecollie said...

We read that one too and were incensed. The only one of us who could eat, if they went by BMI, is my son, who is so thin he looks like a refugee. Heck, if they went by BMI the whole Giants (and Patriots) football team would have to go hungry!

Anonymous said...

This sounds like another pet project that is wasting the taxpayers money. I would venture a guess that Congressman Mayhall has a personal problem with eating too much. either the congressman himself or a relative or close friend. We can not legislate personal responsibility into law. That would open up way too many cans of worms.