the Scott Stein

This has to be a spoof, right? Someone goofing around? I haven't heard of Raw Story. Is it like The Onion? If not, if this story is real, I'm worried that there is no future in satire. Really, how do you exaggerate this?

House Bill 282 aims to require dining establishments with seating capacity of five or more to follow guidelines set by the state's health department to determine a prospective customer's obesity, turning away those considered too fat to serve.

And you think Mean Martin Manning is a satire. Maybe it isn't. Maybe it's history written before the fact.

Could Alice Pitney be behind this? Could she be Big Dietician?

It must be a joke.

(hat tip Dave Lull)

Update: I see that David Harsanyi has blogged about this. The story is in USA Today. No joke, I guess. The bill is not expected to "garner much support in the statehouse."

Caseworker Alice Pitney endorses a candidate.

John Tickell, a "leading Australian nutritionist," is encouraging airlines to charge fat passengers more money for their seats because it "would highlight his country's obesity crisis and make commercial sense, as heavier loads increase fuel costs." Tickell's real motive, however, appears to be personal:

I fly Sydney to Perth - five hours - and being totally disadvantaged by some huge person next to me literally flopping over into my seat. Why should I pay the same as them?

How does requiring fat people to pay more for their ticket address the issue of them flopping on dear Tickell's seat? It doesn't. Only making seats bigger would address that. But doing so would make life more comfortable for obese people, which would encourage them to remain obese, if I am applying Tickell's logic properly. You see, Tickell thinks we're coddling fat people:

I think we're a bit too nice, we're a bit too precious about minority groups. I think the majority group must have something to say too.

I guess we could visit schoolyards in Australia, if they're anything like the ones in the United States, to find plenty of evidence of coddling of fat people--because, as you surely know, fat people are never teased, mocked, and humiliated by their peers. Construct your own mental list of the degradations and struggles a very heavy person endures every day and ask yourself if "coddling" quite captures it.

Anyway, since "67% of Australian men and over half of women aged over 25 are overweight or obese" and "[e]xperts have warned that by 2030 half of the country's children will be overweight or obese if the problem goes unchecked," maybe Tickell needs to rethink this issue of minority versus majority rights. Fat people are the majority. Just wait until they get organized and realize their political power, John Tickell, leading nutritionist. Sitting next to a fat guy will be the least of your worries.

Source: BBC News via Instapundit.

I was going to blog about Hardee's new breakfast burrito, but someone beat me to it.

I just learned of a new phrase, "Eating Competence," which is used in a study by researchers at Penn State.

Eating competence, as it was defined for the study, is the idea that a person is aware and able to balance their hunger, appetite and eating enjoyment with their body's biological tendency to maintain a preferred and stable weight.

I guess this means that people who know they can eat a cheese steak once in a while without putting on weight, and do so, are going to maintain a "preferred and stable weight." And those who cannot eat a cheese steak without putting on weight, and who don't know this fact about themselves and therefore eat the cheese steak, are not going to maintain a "preferred and stable weight."

I'm not saying there can't be anything to this idea of Eating Competence. We see it with alcohol consumption, anecdotally. Some people know their limits better than do others, and are better at avoiding excess. Maybe thin people do have more Eating Competence and are more in tune with their bodies and what and how much they should eat in order to maintain their weight.

But notice the use of "preferred." By whom? And notice the assumption that it is always best to balance hunger, appetite and eating enjoyment, with maintaining weight as the goal. For me it is, more or less — I enjoy food, just not enough to allow myself to become a fat guy. Then again, that could be because I am Eating Competent. Or because I don't put on weight as easily as some other people do. I can imagine, though, that someone without my metabolism could decide that a life with ice cream is worth the health risks that accompany increased weight. How much increased weight is the ice cream worth? Not much, to me. But not everyone is me. If people place different values on pleasure and health than the researchers do, if people are willing to trade a bit of the second for more of the first, does that make them incompetent?

The researchers believe that, "[g]iven the associated health benefits, education that develops EC [eating competency] appears prudent." Of course they do. I wonder if they'd like to play a role in developing such grant-funded educational programs and related polices. Probably not. Still, if people want to lose weight, and this information can be helpful to them, fine.

I don't know all that the study entailed, only that "[a]s part of the study, the Penn State researchers administered an on-line survey to 370 participants and a paper version to another 462 people." Maybe there's more to it. Either way, coming up with a phrase like "Eating Competence," and, by implication but obviously, "Eating Incompetence," could be the first step to making this a disorder, if not a disease. Where that might lead is anyone's guess. Have fun inventing seemingly paranoid possibilities and connecting it to various recent proposals to have government subsidize or take over health care or health insurance. I know someone who would love the phrase "Eating Competence." I'm sorry I didn't come up with it myself.

(Hat tip, Dave Lull)

Zero Tolerance
by Scott Stein

Team Leader signaled the sniper to take up position. He hoped to God he wouldn’t have to use him. It was always worst with the young ones. High schools and middle schools were bad enough, and the elementary school last week was a horror story, so many wasted lives barely begun. Even that was nothing compared to today.

Sunnyville DayCare was surrounded. Patrol cars, two SWAT teams, and news vans from every major network ringed the rectangular brick building and fenced-in playground. Helicopters overhead sent aerial views to millions of televisions in homes across America. Officers locking arms kept the reporters at bay. A mother sobbed, “My baby!” Cameras whirled and microphones lunged.

Team Leader blocked it out, and his hunger, too. He was determined to end this without bloodshed, but knew it wasn’t up to him. Those kids in there had started this. Only they could end it peacefully. There’d been too many of these lately, almost one a week. It was an epidemic all right--the world was going to hell in a hurry.

He lifted the bullhorn. “Kids, listen up. This is the police.” He had to be careful not to provoke them. How they got their hands on dangerous contraband still wasn’t clear, but there they were locked inside with it. A mistake could lead them to use it--he’d be held responsible for any consequences to their health. Probably someone had left it unguarded, maybe a store clerk. More likely it was a careless parent.

This sort of thing didn’t use to happen. He remembered his own childhood--sure, sometimes kids talked back or broke curfew, but never this kind of open rebellion against adults and rules and the best-intentioned standards of a caring society. And at such a young age!

His voice through the bullhorn boomed. “Come out of there now and no one will get hurt.”

No answer. Team Leader couldn’t wait any longer. The risk was too great. He signaled, watched as the canister shattered a window of Sunnyville DayCare, in an instant thick white smoke billowing from the hole. Another signal, and four team members in gas masks swung from the roof through other windows, smashing glass and disappearing into the building and the smoke.

Quiet.

Seconds passed like minutes.

Then the front door swung open, heavy smoke blowing wild as the team members exited the building, children slung over their shoulders. There were four kids in all. No shots fired, no open wounds.

For a moment, Team Leader smiled. Tragedy had been averted. Smile gone as he got a closer look at the kids, chubby five-year-olds, crumbs on their shirts, glazed sticky fingers, sugar-high eyes darting. One girl still clutched the now-empty box of donuts, her knuckles white.

Team Leader shook his head. Four more victims. He consoled himself--you couldn’t save them all--and prepared for the worst.

The media descended.



-----

"Zero Tolerance" was first published in Liberty in 2005.

If you enjoyed this story, check out my novels Mean Martin Manning and Lost.

I'm shocked. It turns out that Chinese food is fattening, full of sodium, and in general not very good for people. Who knew?

The CNN article advises readers to share Chinese dishes to minimize calories and fat intake. First, I believe that this is how many Americans have traditionally eaten Chinese food anyway. Second, it doesn't do much good, since though people share Chinese dishes, they usually share mulitple dishes, eating the same amount, or perhaps more, than if each person had ordered a single dish and not shared it.

In any case, the article misses the biggest danger of all -- everyone knows that an hour after eating Chinese food, people are hungry again, and usually snack or even eat another meal. That has to be factored in to the already high-fat, high-calorie Chinese food dinner. I'm amazed that this stuff is still legal. But maybe not for long.

Some people think slippery slope arguments are the products of paranoid minds. That they're logical fallacies. That one thing does not lead to another. That reasonable people know when enough is enough. That there is no slippery slope.

Except, sometimes, there is.

I picked up a couple of Subway sandwiches the other day. The napkins touted Subway's nutritious, low-fat fare--the franchise chain has been marketing itself as the healthy fast food choice for a few years now. At the top corner of the napkin is a graphic that says, "6 grams of fat or less*"

Below this napkin graphic is a list of a few Subway sandwiches with corresponding calories, fat(g), and saturated fat(g). For examples, the Veggie Delite has 230 calories, 3 grams of fat, and 1 gram of saturated fat; the Turkey Breast has 280 calories, 4.5 grams of fat, and 1.5 grams of saturated fat; and the Roast Beef has 290 calories, 5 grams of fat, and 2 grams of saturated fat.

On the napkin, below a red "Versus," is nutritional information for a McDonald's Big Mac and a Burger King Whopper. A Big Mac has 560 calories, 30 grams of fat, and 10 grams of saturated fat, and a Whopper has 670 calories, 39 grams of fat, and 11 grams of saturated fat.

Subway is hoping that you see "670 calories" and all those grams of fat next to its own listing of 280 calories and not too much fat and say, "Holy crap! I better eat at Subway instead of Burger King or McDonald's." Subway is also hoping that you neglect to factor in at least two important pieces of information.

The first thing is that the Subway nutritional information on the napkin is based on the 6-inch sandwich, not the foot-long. Now, I imagine that if you are the sort of person who would even consider eating an entire Whopper, you aren't going to be satisfied by a 6-inch sandwich that only has 280 calories. That isn't a meal. It's an appetizer. It obviously doesn't make sense to compare a 560-calorie meal (Big Mac) with a 280-calorie meal (6-inch Subway Turkey Breast). We might as well compare total alcohol content in a bottle of vodka and a shot of wine. When we compare the 6-inch Turkey Breast sandwich to a popular item with a comparable number of calories, Subway still comes out looking healthier--a regular McDonald's hamburger has 260 calories, 9 grams of fat, and 3.5 grams of saturated fat. A more honest napkin would be comparing these two items, which makes Subway's Turkey Breast look good fat-wise (it has half the fat of the burger), but which doesn't distort Subway's health advantage by comparing unlike items in terms of calories.

The second thing is the asterisk. The calorie and fat content for the Subway sandwich does not include condiments or cheese. The napkin says that 2 cheese triangles (the portion you would get on a 6-inch sandwich) is 40 calories, 3.5 grams of fat, and 2 grams of saturated fat. Mustard adds only 5 calories with no fat. The napkin has wisely chosen not to list mayonnaise.

Let's make the comparison more accurate, doing the math Subway hopes we won't do. A foot-long turkey with cheese is 640 calories, 16 grams of fat, and 7 grams of saturated fat. This is not including mayonnaise. Compare this to the Big Mac's 560/30/10 or the Whopper's 670/39/11, and Subway's Turkey Breast sandwich still comes out as the lower fat choice by far, but not by quite the exceptional margin it at first appeared.

Let's be more fair, and not compare the most fattening meal at Burger King (the Whopper) with a Subway Turkey Breast sandwich. Instead, let's look at Subway's BMT sandwich, which conveniently is not mentioned on the napkin (since it does not have 6 grams or less of fat). The 6-inch BMT has 450 calories, 21 grams of fat, and 8 grams of saturated fat. That's not including cheese. The Meatball Marinara has 560 calories, 24 grams of fat, and 11 grams of saturated fat. Add cheese and make either of these sandwiches foot-longs, and a Whopper or a Big Mac is looking pretty healthy by comparison. The foot-long BMT with cheese is 980 calories, 49 grams of fat, and 20 grams of saturated fat. The totals for the Meatball Marinara foot-long might crash my computer.

It would be dishonest to compare these Subway behemoths to the less fattening McDonald's offerings, like grilled chicken, but that is exactly what Subway does on its napkin by comparing half a turkey sandwich to a Whopper and a Big Mac.

The least fattening sandwich as a proportion of calories on the McDonald's menu is the Premium Grilled Chicken sandwich, which has 420 calories, 9 grams of fat, and 2 grams of saturated fat. As a ratio, that's not far off from the Subway Turkey Breast's (without cheese) totals of either (6-inch) 280/4.5/1.5 or (foot-long) 560/9/3, though the Turkey Breast still has less fat per calorie. Add cheese and mayonnaise, and this might not be true.

When I was in college and could eat anything I wanted without gaining weight, I would sometimes have a Subway foot-long BMT with cheese and mayo as well as chips and a Coke. I didn't eat McDonald's as often, but when I did, I'd have a Big Mac, fries, and a Coke (sometimes a 6-piece chicken nuggets on top of it all). Same at Burger King, substituting a Whopper with cheese for the Big Mac. I think that's pretty close to what a lot of people order at these places (maybe without the nuggets thrown in). In any case, if you are going to eat any of these, you'll be taking in plenty of calories and fat. And if you eat a small turkey sandwich with nothing on it, or a grilled chicken sandwich, you won't be taking in plenty of calories and fat. But the first category--BMT, Big Mac, or Whopper--should not be compared to the second category--turkey sandwich, grilled chicken sandwich--as a way of proving that one restaurant is good for you and the other one is not.

Maybe Subway has more low-fat options than Burger King or McDonald's does (it seems to, though I haven't included salads or devoted my life to comparing menus), and maybe people who choose Subway tend to make healthier choices (perhaps because people go to the burger places specifically to get a Whopper or Big Mac, and people who are interested in more low-fat options choose Subway for that reason). I don't have any objections to Subway pushing the low-fat angle in its marketing. But fair is fair, and consumers should not be taken in by misleading comparisons.

Of course, it isn't anyone's damn business what we choose to eat. Subway has jumped on the obesity-obsessed bandwagon, and if customers looking for weight-loss options find some there, good for them. But since we know that some people would like to limit our choices either by suing fast food companies or passing laws outright, and are targeting the same companies Subway targets on its napkins, let's be sure to direct a bit of our skepticism and critical thought towards healthier-than-thou marketing campaigns that seek to portray their competition as purveyors of nutritional evil in the form of two all-beef-patties-special-sauce-lettuce-cheese-pickles-onions-on-a-sesame-seed-bun.


Sources: Subway napkin, subway.com, mcdonalds.com

Leave aside my problems with the hysteria over the obesity epidemic (that if given enough time will become the War on Obesity). It is amusing to see nanny state political correctness battling itself.

On the one hand, being obese is not okay, because we owe it to society and the government to be healthy, are obligated to save the public money on our healthcare costs, and must set a good example for others.

On the other hand, we need to accept everyone, shouldn't judge people, and don't want to injure a child's self-esteem.

It's quite a conflict. Hence the debate over whether we should call obese children obese:

Paola Fernandez Rana of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., has a 9-year old daughter who at 40 pounds overweight is considered obese. Rana said doctors "refer to it as the 'o-word'" in front of her daughter "in an effort not to upset her."

Rana "said she agreed with the term [obese] and thinks that at some point it should be used with her daughter, too."

This Rana let her nine-year-old daughter get 40 pounds--40 pounds--overweight. Clearly, she's qualified to be giving advice. Fortunately, not everyone is as cruel as Ms. Rana, willing to use the o-word in front of an obese nine-year-old girl (at some point).

Chicago pediatrician Rebecca Unger [...] said she likes using the term "at risk for overweight" because it gives patients hope that "we can do something about it."

The research is still being conducted, and the experts have yet to make final recommendations about what exactly doctors should call these kids. I'm guessing they won't decide to just go with fat bastard and be done with it.


Source: CNN