One reason Americans are fatter than ever might seem to be sloth, except for the fact that 60% of the population worked in both 1979 and 2022 but the average work week dropped by just one hour over the period

According to the CDC, obesity is most severe among those of late middle-age, so if you can prevent it before then you are more likely to escape it later:

The prevalence of severe obesity was highest among adults aged 40–59 compared with other age groups.

Peak Baby Boom turned 40 in 1997.

Americans worked 32.61 hours per week on average in 1979 and 31.57 hours in 2022

All countries in 2016 with 30% of population or more obese

60% of the US population was working in both 1979 and 2022

Boston Globe editorial board downplays illegal immigration threat, misrepresents Gallup survey which said immigration is Americans' top unprompted concern

 From the Gallup survey:

 

For the second straight month, immigration leads Americans’ unprompted answers about what most ails the nation, with inflation also figuring prominently. ...

Immigration Is Americans’ Top Unprompted Concern

Gallup also measures Americans’ views of national concerns monthly by asking them to name, unprompted, what they believe is the most important problem facing the country today. This question format is asked before the list of issue concerns in the survey and yields a slightly different conclusion, finding immigration ranking ahead of inflation. Overall, 28% of Americans, the same as in February and the most for any issue, name immigration as the top problem. That essentially ties the 27% reading from July 2019 as the highest since Gallup started compiling mentions of immigration in 1981.

 

But here's the Boston Globe:

Late last month, the venerable Gallup company released a survey listing the most pressing concerns in the United States. Predictably topping the list were inflation and crime, followed by hunger and homelessness, the economy broadly, and the high cost of health care. Farther back were things like illegal immigration, drug use, and the environment.

 

When Gallup asks Americans to rank their concerns about a list of problems, immigration is placed seventh in the list. By the time your average person gets to number seven, he's already forgotten what he said about one, two, three, four, and five.

But you can see from that list what really concerns most people: their weight.

Take the combined "worrying a great deal" and "a fair amount" about any of the fourteen problems and you will see that NUMERO UNO is . . . hunger and homelessness at 80%.

Yet homelessness affected fewer than 600,000 people in 2022.

And hunger? Hunger is now about "food insecurity", not starving. My fat cat is food insecure if I fail to keep her food bowl full. Two-thirds of adults are overweight, 40% of whom are obese, and there's a weight-loss-drug mania out there.

No, Americans are worried about the obscenely high cost of housing and that they'll end up on the street begging for the food Joe Biden's inflation made unaffordable if they lose their jobs, which is highly likely with 10 million illegals he let in competing for their positions.

But yeah, worry about nuclear war with The Boston Globe.

 

 

 

66% of children hospitalized for COVID-19 have a comorbidity, mostly obesity

 https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/21/kids-covid-hospitalizations-hit-pandemic-high-worrying-doctors-and-parents-.html

Frank Meyer knew better but had it exactly backwards

Seen here:

The political questions are not unimportant, but they pale in comparison to the importance of the moral and religious aspect of our lives. As Frank Meyer put it in his book In Defense of Freedom, “in the moral realm freedom is only a means whereby men can pursue their proper end, which is virtue.”

This is a defect of that poor thing, the libertarian mind, which compartmentalizes reality into aspects, repudiating, with the rest of modernity, the pre-Englightenment understanding that the moral realm is the only meaningful realm inhabited by humanity.

Perhaps the more important defect of this libertarian mind is viewing freedom as a means or instrumentality, rather than as a result of virtue.

In truth, freedom is a condition, a by-product, a sign. It is subsidiary and not the main show. You can't wrangle enough of it and produce virtue with it. That's putting the cart before the horse, as we used to say. In fact quite the opposite. An excess of freedom makes a monster, because men are first and foremost not angels. The excess of freedom in the United States is the precondition for its licentiousness, making it the world capital for obesity, indolence, drug abuse, empty celebrity, sexual perversion, immorality, violence, entertainment, self-loathing, and a host of other ills. Eventually such a people tyrannized by themselves will require an actual tyrant to rule them.

You will not have a good society without good people, as Meyer did recognize as parents in the 1960s gave up being good and expected "institutions" such as schools and churches to take over their responsibility to be so.

This failure of nerve already had the country firmly in its grip by Meyer's time. Today we see the same shirking phenomenon but now writ even larger, as we expect a Trump, a political party, the Conservative Movement Inc., the Federalist Society, the rule of law, the police, the courts, or constitutional parchment to fix what only the individual can fix.

Only you can fix what is wrong. You must, as Bill Buckley once famously said, "Cancel your own goddam subscription". You can. You must. Or it's over.

If you don't the woke will fix it for you. The current rage for and of "woke" is nothing if not a response of the young "nones" to this libertarian misunderstanding. Their chief enemy is freedom. The woke see all too clearly that American culture is incapable of saying No, which is the only true mark of the free man. Instead we think being free means saying Yes, to everything.

And if history is any guide, we'll say Yes to that, too, to the new tyranny of woke. 

BREAKING: AIRLINER WITH 167 ABOARD CRASHES IN ATLANTIC, KILLING ONLY 10 . . .

 

THE OTHER 94% DIED OF HEART DISEASE, CANCER, DIABETES, OBESITY, DROWNING, AND SHARK ATTACK. -- The New York Postmortem

Obesity, for when your less than trenchant lunacy requires a bigger billboard

You've done quite enough blooming already, my dear.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas commandeers woman's first class seat on United flight

Then claims racism when the woman complains.

Story here, where Yahoo doesn't name the congresswoman in the headline. In fact Yahoo doesn't name her until paragraph ten. But it does provide photos of the obese black idiot.

Health Bills Fail Five Constitutionality Tests

ObamaCare vs. the Constitution

By BETSY MCCAUGHEY January 6, 2010

The health bills in Congress rob you of your constitutional rights. Here are five provisions (of many) that fail the constitutionality test and reveal Congress's disrespect for the public:

* Section 3403 of the Senate health bill, establishing a commission to cut Medicare spending, says the law can't be changed or repealed in the future. This whopper shows that Congress thinks its work should be set in stone. Wrong. The people always have the right to elect a new Congress to change or repeal what a previous Congress has done.

* A Senate health-bill amendment mysteriously allocates $100 million to an unnamed facility that "shall be affiliated with an academic health center at a public research university in the United States that contains a state's sole public academic medical and dental school" (Sec. 10502, p. 328-329). Why not name the facility?

This pork deal was arranged by Sen. Chris Dodd for the University of Connecticut Health Center, although 11 hospitals in the nation technically meet these specifications. If Congress wrote the provision in Polish or Russian to keep the public in the dark, it would be unconstitutional. The language is a deception. The fact that legislators commonly do this makes it more damaging, not less so.

* The bills require you to enroll in a "qualified health plan," whether you want it or not. Forcing people to buy insurance obviously reduces the number of uninsured. But Congress doesn't have the authority to force people to buy a product.

Sen. Orin Hatch (R-Nev.) said on the Senate floor, "If Congress may require individuals to purchase a particular good or service . . . We could simply require that Americans buy certain cars . . . for that matter, we could attack the problem of obesity by requiring Americans to buy fruits and vegetables."

Some Congress members claim the "general welfare clause" of the Constitution empowers them to impose a mandate. But they're taking the phrase out of context. The Constitution gives Congress power to tax and spend for the general welfare, but not to make other kinds of laws for the general welfare.

The Senate bill (pages 320-324) claims the "interstate commerce" clause of the Constitution gives Congress this authority. But for half a century, states have regulated health insurance. In fact, individuals are barred from buying insurance in any state except where they live, the antithesis of interstate commerce.

Congressional majorities have frequently resorted to the commerce clause to justify their lawmaking. In FDR's first term, Congress cited it to pass the National Industrial Recovery Act, which gave the federal government power to micromanage local businesses, setting wages and hours and even barring customers from selecting their live chickens at the butcher. Two Brooklyn brothers, owners of Schechter Poultry Corp., a kosher chicken business, challenged that interference. In 1935, the US Supreme Court ruled the NIRA unconstitutional.

In 1995, the high court again admonished Congress against using the commerce clause as a basis for expanded lawmaking, even when the purpose is as worthy as keeping handguns out of a school zone (US v. Lopez). The court ruled that Congress must stick to its enumerated powers and leave states to police school zones (and, perhaps, mandate health insurance).

* Never before has the federal government intruded into decisions made by doctors for privately insured patients, except on narrow issues such as drug safety. Nothing in the Constitution permits it. But the Senate bill makes you enroll in a plan and then says that only doctors who do what the government dictates can be paid by your plan.

"Qualified plans" can contract only with a doctor who "implements such mechanisms to improve health-care quality as the [current or future] secretary [of Health and Human Services] may by regulation require" (Sec. 1311, p. 148-49). That covers all of medicine, from heart care to child birth, stents to mammograms.

* Finally, the "takings clause" of the Fifth Amendment bars government from taking your property without compensation. It should protect everyone, no matter how unpopular -- even insurance companies, but Congress ignored it in writing the health bill. The Senate version goes beyond reining in insurance-company abuses, a just cause, and actually caps insurance-company profit margins at well below current levels, robbing shareholders.

Next year, Congress could impose similar caps on profit margins of bodegas, pizzerias and grocers, by arguing that food -- also a necessity -- is too expensive. Your business could be next.

In 2010, ordinary citizens will have to stand up for their constitutional rights, just as the Schechter brothers did 75 years ago. Congress members swear to uphold the Constitution, but it appears many are ignorant of what it says. They should be mandated to take a course, as pilots and doctors are. Congress needs to be reminded that the Constitution defines and limits its powers.

Betsy McCaughey, a former New York lieutenant governor, is author of "Government by Choice: Inventing the United States Constitution."

Visit the source here.

Take Over the Health Care of All To Provide it to 5% Who Don't Have it Now?

This article appeared here.

December 17, 2009

Government Shouldn't Control Health Decisions

By Larry Elder

Americans overwhelmingly like their health care and their health insurance. While Americans reject ObamaCare, the President and Congress insist on driving it through.

Most Americans, up to 85 percent, already have health insurance and are satisfied with it. Lacking health insurance is different from lacking health care -- which, by law, emergency rooms must supply. Millions go without health insurance by choice and not due to lack of resources. Deduct from the number without insurance those who have access to it via entitlement programs, those temporarily without it while between jobs, those here illegally and those who could go on their parents' insurance plans by paying affordable amounts -- and you're down to 10 million to 15 million people without health insurance for longer than a year. This represents 5 percent of Americans.

To address this, the President and the Democrats are this close to a complete government takeover of health care. And a takeover it is. Assuming some kind of plan reaches the President's desk, it will -- at minimum -- force all Americans to purchase health insurance or pay fines or worse. It will force nearly all employers to provide health insurance or pay fines. It will tell health insurers that they must accept applicants with pre-existing illnesses and restrict their ability to "discriminate" based on factors like sex and age.

Incredibly, the President and Congress tell us that our economic recovery hinges on "health care reform" and that they can achieve it -- providing millions of people with health insurance estimated to cost a trillion dollars in the first decade -- while simultaneously reducing the deficit. The plan anticipates cutting hundreds of billions from the popular Medicare programs, whose beneficiaries vote in numbers greater than any other age group. Doctors and hospitals already complain that Medicare reimbursements fall short of costs, let alone profits. Good luck with that.

"Health care reform" achieves its deficit-reducing magic by collecting taxes in the early years -- building up money -- while paying out very little. Only after the first four years does money go out. It also forces states to pick up part of the tab. So, voila, it actually reduces the deficit -- at least in the first decade.

Then what? The Congressional Budget Office -- in cost estimates full of caveats, conditions and on-the-one-hands -- says that it could/might/may reduce the deficit in the second and third decades, too. Again, this assumes continued cuts in doctor and hospital reimbursements.

Despite the White House photo op of docs in their white frocks, most physicians oppose ObamaCare. They resent further government supervision and control over their practice. A poll commissioned by Investor's Business Daily found that 65 percent "oppose" ObamaCare and that 45 percent would consider taking early retirement or leaving their practice if the bill went through.

Given the broad opposition -- most Americans, most doctors and seniors in fear of cuts in Medicare -- why do it?

First, the Democrats -- now in control of all three branches of government -- have convinced themselves that they face a political price if they fail. ObamaCare supporters, based on bogus assumptions and inflated numbers, argue that many, if not most, bankruptcy filings are due to health care bills. If, as President Obama asserts, "reforming" health care and economic prosperity go hand in hand, how can they abandon it?

Second, while a large majority of Republicans and most independents oppose these "reforms," Democrats overwhelmingly support them. They consider health care and health insurance a right -- never mind the Constitution or the price tag -- and think "the rich" should bear the costs. Congresspersons fear an electorate upset at a failure "to deliver" a victory over the evil, money-grubbing insurance companies.

Third, many believe in good faith that this is the "right thing to do." This breathtakingly ignores the mountain of evidence that government command-and-control health care reduces quality, reduces innovation and inevitably leads to rationing. The president of the Canadian Medical Association says Canada's system -- a single-payer kind, favored by President Obama -- is "imploding." She calls for more competition.

Critics of America's health care system say that citizens in other countries enjoy longer life expectancies. But after adjusting for homicides, increased infant mortality due to teen pregnancies and low birth weights, obesity and other behavioral factors, the discrepancy disappears. Compare American medical outcomes against those of other countries. Our system produces the world's best results for cancer patients who go into medical care at the same time similarly situated patients enter their countries' care. Our pharmaceutical companies lead the world in coming up with new life-extending and -enhancing drugs, a record at risk given new controls and taxes under the guise of "reform."

When the ObamaCare bill comes due -- when the deficit explodes and the costs are "controlled" through government-directed rationing -- supporters, including President Obama, will long have departed Washington, leaving others to deal with the mess. In the meantime, bend over and cough. Or else.

Copyright 2009 Creators Syndicate, Inc.