Government will monitor your fatness

Uncle Sam wants to know how fat you are, and he’s going to make your doctor report your tonnage.

Reports are now circulating that new federal guidelines have been issued that will make it mandatory for health care providers to include your Body Mass Index in electronic records that all Americans will have to have by 2014.

And while one would think that such a rule would be part of the health care reform bill, the records requirement is actually part of last year’s stimulus law.

Doctors and hospitals that refuse to comply with the new rules will risk penalties such as reduced Medicare and Medicaid payments, according to CNSNews.com and FoxNews.

Nutrition expert Mitzi Dulan told FoxNews: “The fact we’re now tracking BMIs’, I think knowledge is power for us. There are a lot of people that don’t know their BMI and it’s denial.”

Dulan unwittingly hit the nail on the head with her analysis – knowledge is power. And in this case, it is power for the federal government to further meddle and control our lives.

There is no good reason for the federal government to have this information. There is no constitutional activity that requires it. But this is what the American government does now instead of doing important things like – oh, I don’t know – say securing its international borders.

The FoxNews report also cites Dulan as noting that that $147 billion is spent annually on obesity-related costs.

Now why is this significant? Just as this column has warned before, the Food Nazis are taking pages from the War on Big Tobacco years ago. Remember how much tobacco-related illnesses cost the nation? Remember how tobacco manufacturers were accused of marketed their products to kids? All of this and more was used as fodder for lawsuits against tobacco companies and as a means to control and suppress tobacco consumption.

Now, we learn that billions are spent on obesity related costs; health nuts are targeting McDonald’s and others for marketing to – altogether now – the children; and the feds believe they have a vested interest in what you eat.

This is just the beginning. The government is here to help us, and the powers that be are determined that you will be healthy whether you want to be or not.

Meanwhile…
I swear I don’t know what the world is coming to.  The end, perhaps. Things just get stranger and stranger, and sometimes seem to go from bad to worse.

Case in point, I’m perusing the Internet Monday morning and learn that, in honor of its 65th anniversary, Baskin-Robbins is pulling the plug on one of its longest running flavors, French Vanilla. Sort of like, Coca-Cola celebrated its centennial back in the mid-1980s by changing its 100-year-old soda formula. A simply brilliant example of public relations stupidity. Why this has been done this is beyond me. Obama probably has something to do with it, I’m sure.

I grew up with Baskin-Robbins; it was part of the excitement of going to Amarillo back in the day. As I recall, there were at one time three locations to chose from, and my family ate at all of them depending on which was closest. We would eat at the Zuider Zee, Myer’s Drumstick, or Shakey’s Pizza; and then have dessert at
Baskin-Robbins. And there, I always, always got French Vanilla. Sometimes I’d put something else with it – Mint Chocolate Chip or Strawberry Cheesecake or something – but there was always a scoop of French Vanilla in my cup.

B-R sent my brother and me birthday cards every year, provided him with some sweet treats during some rather unpleasant dental procedures, and also was the source of the dry ice that he used to burn a wart off my hand very unexpectedly when I was about 13… but I digress.

I guess it has something with my approaching 40th birthday, but the things of my youth now seem further and further away and some of the things I loved the most have almost disappeared entirely. Baskin-Robbins wounded me deeply about 10 or 12 years ago when they suddenly pulled all their franchises out of Amarillo and Lubbock, but one did finally re-open in Lubbock just a couple of years ago.

But now comes this news, the end of B-R’s French Vanilla. I don’t know how much more I can take really. I’ve joined the Facebook page that is trying to save this beloved flavor and coerced my employees into doing the same. The page started last Thursday and by Monday morning it had more than 900 followers and that grew to more than 1300 by Monday evening, and they are all as outraged as I am.

For example, Glenn Causer of Ruckersville, Virginia wrote: “Keep French vanilla, fire the idiot that decided to get rid of it.

But it was Gary Brefini of Dedham, Mass., who summed it up best: “You ba*****s! <shaking my fist>…French Vanilla? Have you no conscience? No humanity?”
No, Gary. They apparently don’t.