The Health Crusade

Yeah, Krugman's usually pretty perceptive about class issues, and it's obvious he's missed the connection here. Amelia's letter is fantastic!

Maybe he is being paid off by big pharma. It usually takes one to know one!

What I find offensive is he claims to be making the case for getting corporations out of our schools because they sell junk food, yet the bulk of the piece is all about how fat people are killing themselves and the insurance system--as if we never paid for healthcare, as if health insurance were some kind of mandatory tax, rather than a SERVICE that you buy. He could have easily made the case, as I have elsewhere, that there is something very sinister about big corporations being allowed to use our schools to train our kids to be captive consumers--and that sinister quality has nothing to do with childhood obesity. And, if he wants the government to do something, perhaps he ought to advocate that it FUND EDUCATION. The reason schools give out vending machine contracts, after all, is because the corporations that own them fork over thousands of dollars that schools need, but aren't getting elsewhere. Corporations know this investment will pay off many times over, because they are "gettin' 'em young." It's "corporate" not corpulence, that is destroying our society.Paul Krugman is more than smart enough to realize this, and he could have made his point without demonizing fat. I guess we have to remind him that, when you take away the "health" concern wrongly associated with obesity, you are left with plain, pure-dee bigotry.

"Meanwhile, [the big food industry] outsource the campaigns against medical researchers and the dissemination of crude anti-anti-obesity propaganda to industry-financed advocacy groups like the Center for Consumer Freedom. " Never a fan of CCF, I don't disagree with this statement. Its true. I think this is exactly why those of us who aren't food industry shills really do need to distinguish what we're saying from what groups like CCF are saying. CCF does not speak for me. It IS an industry financed advocacy group, and it doesn't care any more about the health and well-being of fat people than the industries that fund it care about the health and well-being of thin people, or any size people. They care about protecting their profit margin. The question of whether fast food restaurnts should be subjected to lawsuits for allegedly making people fat is a completely separate issue from fat acceptance. Yes, people of all sizes should be able to choose what they eat without having government nannies looking over our shoulder, and NO, "eating the wrong foods" is NOT what makes (some of) us fat, therefore NO, I don't think anybody should be able to sue restaurants for selling "the wrong foods" as a CAUSE of making anybody fat. But that doesn't mean I support or agree with CCF. OTOH I totally agree about using children as captive consumers. Children DO need to eat (they do NOT "need" to smoke tobacco, but they DO need to eat), and if what is available to them at school is junk food from vending machines, or at the fast food joint across the street, then that is what they will eat. That doesn't mean its an optimal food, but if that is what is readily available that is what they will eat. There should be NO advertising in schools, and NO vendor "product placements" -- and I _think_ I even feel that way about the free computers and software that computer manufacturers "give" to schools (and get enormous tax breaks for doing so) in order to try to "hook" kids on THEIR brand so that is what the kids will go out and buy when they are ready to spend their computer dollars, too. Schools are supposed to be teaching kids to seek knowledge, to search for truth, to critically examine what they hear, not advertising (or selling) particular companies' products to captive audiences, to financially benefit the school. I agree too, if schools were adequately funded, this wouldn't be happening.

Amp wrote a great blog post on the Krugman article and points out the hypocrisy of criticizing Big Food while not criticizing Big Diet.

"One answer is to focus on the financial costs of obesity, and the fact that many of these costs fall on taxpayers and on the general insurance-buying public, rather than on the obese individuals themselves." I wonder if he'd like to look at the hundreds of thousands of dollars in hospital bills I've racked up over the years in hospitalizations for anorexia, most of which was paid by insurance. You know, if he's really concerned about financial cost.

Hmmm! Well, I didn't read the article, but I think SSO picked out a great line. Maybe it was the insurance industry who paid him off, trying to stir up antifat sentiment so the public will be more receptive to their plans to charge us more in group policies. It is probably not just extreme bigotry on his part but part of a insidious public manipulation campaign.

Reminds me of how Morgan Spurlock, in his new book, accused everyone who criticized Supersize Me of being "shills" for Big Food‚Ñ¢.  (Ironically enough, he uses Greg Critser as a reference.) -Qit