In her book, Dependent on D.C.: The Rise of Federal Control Over the Lives of Ordinary Americans, author Charlotte A. Twight says, "Few things are more personal than health care, nor more alien to the legitimate functions of limited government. Yet few things are higher on the U.S. government's agenda at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Step by step, the federal government is usurping power to substitute its medi- cal judgements and therapeutic choices for those of individual patients and their physi- cians."

Having taken over much of the health system via Medicare, Medicaid and similar pro- grams, the cost of illnesses that result from smoking and now obesity has become a government concern. As such, the government has embarked on an effort to control individual's personal lifestyle choices, as well as accusing the fast-food industry of causing obesity.

The lessons learned from the mistaken and disastrous policy of Prohibition--the outlaw- ing of alcoholic beverages in the 1920s--have not been learned, and the result is the virtual criminalization of the tobacco industry and now, it would seem, the fast-food in- dustry.

Nor are Americans aware that the newly proclaimed U.S. policy comes right out of the United Nations. The UN's World Health Organization and its Food and Agricultural Organization issued a draft Report of the Joint WHO/FAO Expert Consultation on Diet, Nutrition, and the Prevention of Chronic Diseases--a report that made the case that various restrictions must be imposed on everything from soda pop to snack foods in order to save the world from fat people. The UN report manages to ignore the estimat- ed 815 million undernourished people in the world.

This is a plan to create an Orwellian world in which everyone is compelled to do what Big Brother tells them to do. The U.S. campaign, though couched in terms of obesity's financial costs, is a subterfuge for yet greater control over our personal lives.

Health and Human Services Secretary, Tommy G. Thompson, was on television recent- ly pointing the figure at the fast-food industry, urging them to "do what is right for Americans." What is right is the right of every American to determine what and how much he or she eats, and to be responsible for whatever consequences he or she en- counters. This is not a public issue. It is a private one. It is one in which the government should have no role, nor say.

The absurdity of the new war on fat people is seen in a growing assertion, soon to be a nationwide environmental campaign. It is the assertion that housing development plans are actually causing Americans to exercise less, thus contributing to obesity, diabetes, and other disorders. This is pure junk science that defies common sense, but watch what happens, as Americans are told that suburban life is the new enemy and that it is killing them.

It is a hop, skip and a jump from telling Americans they are too fat to issuing regula- tions to insure they do not exceed daily food intake rules set by the government. It extends government control that now includes determination when and where people may smoke.

Getting fat or avoiding it is a personal lifestyle decision. It is not the government's right, nor role, to determine, and the new campaign, initiated by the UN, can lead to still further loss of freedom in America. \

Tom DeWeese is the Publisher & Editor of THE DEWEESE REPORT and President of the American Policy Center, an activist, grassroots think tank headquartered in Warrenton, Virginia. The Center maintains an Internet site at www.americanpolicy. org. The American Policy Center is located at 98 Alexandria Pike (#43), Warrenton, VA, 20186. Telephone: (540) 341-8911

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