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Jewish World Review April 27, 2005 / 18 Nissan, 5765 The obesity myth By Tucker Carlson
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Obesity is an epidemic in this country. At least four hundred thousand Americans die of it every year. Soon, being fat will overtake smoking as the leading cause of preventable death in the United States.
That's what the Centers for Disease Control told us just last year. Politicians, celebrities and other public scolds immediately set about lecturing the rest of us about our chronic, repulsive weight problems.
Well, guess what? It was all a lie. According to a new federal study released this week, moderately fat people live longer than those of normal weight. In other words, being fashionably thin isn't the same as being healthy. As for those hundreds of thousands of overweight dead people, they don't exist. Obesity actually kills only about 26,000 Americans a year. Far fewer than alcohol and car crashes.
But don't expect the government to tell you any of this. Although the CDC concedes its original numbers were completely bogus — inflated by a factor of 15 — it does not plan to correct them in its public awareness campaigns.
But wait. Shouldn't scientists confine themselves to the facts? Sure. But the campaign against obesity was never just about science. It was about religion. And social class. And pure, old fashioned snobbery. In America, being fat isn't simply a health concern. It's a faux pas, an offense against good taste. Possibly even a sin.
Fat people have no self control. No self-respect. They're lazy and shiftless and dumb. They shop at WalMart and live in unfashionable places.
These are the things that every upper-middle class opinion maker knows about fat people. Attacking them is a guilt-free exercise in moral superiority.
But it looks like fat people will have the last laugh. They'll live longer. And good for them. After all the abuse they've taken, they deserve it.
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© 2005 Tucker Carlson |
Mitch Albom | ||||||||||||
