This week’s “Daily Journal” guest columnist is Donna Martinez, associate editor of Carolina Journal.
If only we had more information. We would all be trim and healthy. Teenagers wouldn’t smoke, drink, or do drugs. Homebuyers wouldn’t buy mortgages they can’t afford. Boomers would save a boatload for retirement.
Naïve, yes, but plenty of people believe it’s true and champion new regulations to back up their dreamy hopes that if we keep force-feeding Americans information, we’ll stop being irresponsible. Actually, no. Human nature ensures that some of us will make bad choices even when we know better — particularly when the payoff is short-term gain or gratification.
The freedom to choose — even when it doesn’t make sense — doesn’t sit well with those trying to mold a world with no bad people, no bad news, and no bad aftereffects. In fact, they’re getting more brazen about replacing free will with the mommy state. Their ideal world brims with plenty of excuses, but few personal consequences for irresponsible actions.
Take, for example, the mommy state’s commitment to force us to eat healthier foods. From “sugar free” to “low fat” to “fat free,” words on packages have been defined and analyzed for manufacturers and consumers in an effort to reduce obesity by giving us more information. The result? More data and more overweight people.
Not easily discouraged, the Food and Drug Administration earlier this month took comments on a proposal to require food labels to include symbols — not just words — that denote nutritional value. According to the story, Britain uses a color-coded system in which foods carry dots: green (eat up, everybody), yellow (hey, take it easy), or red (it’s bad for you, pal). Yes, there might actually come a day when Americans are encouraged to fill our grocery baskets with green dots rather than meat, vegetables, and fruit. In a country where some are confused by the homeland security color-code system, going to the grocery store may become more entertainment than chore.
At least a New York judge has shown common sense by nixing a New York City rule that would have required calorie counts on fast-food menus. Granted, the judge’s ruling related to conflict with federal law, but for now at least, the New York State Restaurant Association, its members, and New York consumers will be treated like adults who, with a little thought, can have a good idea about the fat and calories in the cheeseburger and fries they’re about to buy.
On the west coast, Los Angeles Councilwoman Jan Perry is ratcheting up the no-fault fat crusade. She’s targeting the fast-food buildings themselves as the reason there are too many obese people in south L.A. Her answer? Impose a two-year ban on new fast-food restaurants. Incredibly, Perry told the Los Angeles Times that “people don’t want them” in their neighborhoods and only eat fast food when they have no other option.
Obviously, Ms. Perry has never enjoyed a double cheeseburger, fries, and a shake. America’s favorite combo isn’t the last choice for the hungry; it’s the first. I can point out more examples than I have fingers of vegetable-filled supermarkets located on the same block as burger joints. There’s plenty of parking at the market and a long line at the drive-thru.
Sorry, Ms. Perry, but people do understand there’s a lot of fat and calories in that meal. Derailing the opening of restaurants won’t alter the fact or the behavior. Unless she plans to raze existing eateries, or prohibit us from buying cars we’ll use to drive to one, Councilwoman Perry will be disappointed by her constituents’ lack of cooperation in her grand eating plan.
On second thought, forcing us out of our cars may not sound so crazy to Ms. Perry and kindred spirits. Especially now that Charles Courtemanche says his dissertation research shows the obesity rate would drop 15 percent after five years if real gas prices were $1 per gallon higher. The higher price, he says, would get people onto bikes or their feet. In other words, they’ll exercise more.
So what do we do if people leave the car in the garage and simply bike or walk to McDonald’s? What if some folks double their intake by ordering a combo for the road? I have a feeling Ms. Perry would have a government-imposed solution for that scenario, too.