Big Fat Marketplace

Economist Susan Lee's "Big Fat Budget Priority" commentary on public radio's Marketplace today astounded me.

OK, what it really did was piss me off. What astounded me was that public radio aired a discussion of the costs of -- and the desire to -- eliminate an entire population.

How much you weighed used to be a private matter. If you wanted to look like a tub of lard, that was pretty much your business. But now fat is a public issue.

Uh-huh.

One way to prevent the number of fat adults is, of course, to prevent kids from becoming obese. And yes, surveys show that taxpayers are willing to pay the extra tariff to provide low-fat school lunches. Or to expand school athletic programs. Or to provide free treats of fruit and vegetables.

Very nice. And does it matter to them -- or to Ms. Lee -- that such interventions have never been found to affect the rates of childhood obesity? Or that thin kids could benefit from such programs, too?

But speaking as an economist, the question is: How much, exactly, are people willing to spend?....It turns out that New York staters are happy to pony up almost $700 million a year -- or almost $50 each -- to cut the number of fat kids by half.

Or, as Ms. Lee adds, "make sure that no kid looks like a tub of lard." By, you know, "eliminating childhood obesity."

Here's what I emailed to Marketplace:

Re: economist Susan Lee's "Big Fat Budget Priority"....for heaven's sake, there must be people out there willing to kill half the fat kids in America for less than $700 million. I'm sure there are plenty of people who hate fat people enough they'd help out for free! Maybe Ms. Lee would even be willing to pitch in. As well as whoever at Marketplace saw nothing wrong with referring to human beings as "tubs of lard"...twice.

Isn't that what Ms. Lee means by "cutting the number of fat kids in half?" Of course, she and others actually want to eliminate ALL fat kids, really...you know, "prevent childhood obesity."

Trust me, the campaign to "prevent childhood obesity" registers at least subliminally in the psyches of every fat kid and fat adult in America as "they want to prevent ME."

How much are Americans willing to pay to eliminate a population they consider unacceptable?

After the adipose, who's next?

Comments

[Kell]

An email (or letter, or call) to NPR would probably be more effective, since Marketplace is produced by a for-profit, second party media company.

http://www.npr.org/contact/

[Peggy Elam, Ph.D.]

Good idea. Thanks for the link.