Obese Americans and the Return of Lifestyle Nazis :: Health Nutrition Essays

Obese Americans and the Return of Lifestyle Nazis "We are not doing the same kind of things with obesity that we have done with smoking and alcohol as far as the government isconcerned. It's got to be like smoking, a constant drumbeat." That's former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, appearing on CNN, January 11, 2000, calling for the nation's lifestyle Nazis to attack fat people as they attacked smokers. Lifestyle Nazis aren't settling on just obesity, they're targeting meat consumption. Dr. Neal Barnard, president of Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine says, "It's time we looked at holding the meat producers and fast-food outlets legally responsible. Meat consumption is just as dangerous to public health as tobacco use." Doing their part to ban meat consumption, professors at law schools such as Harvard, Rutgersand Georgetown are teaching "animal law" courses. Animals are seen as plaintiffs. Law professors are gearing up by studying old slavery statutes that authorized legal nonpersons to bring lawsuits. Possibly, before long, we might see chickens, cows, pigs and other critters appearing as plaintiffs in court suing for crimes against animals. Morgan Leyh, a member of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) says, "Eating meat is a rich versus poor issue. The rich get fat on meat, while the poor are starving because all the grain is fed to cattle. It's selfish to eat meat - there is no excuse for eating meat." So far as America's poor, that claim reflects unadulterated stupidity. American obesity is mostly a health problem of poor people. But stupidity and callousness is par for the course for PETA. It was PETA president, Ingrid Newkirk, who said slaughter of millions of chickens is a greater tragedy than the Nazi holocaust. She also said that a boy is no more valuable than a clam. PETA has fellow travelers. Guest Choice (www.guestchoice.com) cites fellow traveler, Paul Shapiro, a member of Compassion Over Killing, as saying, "Animals are the most oppressed group on the face of the planet. Eating meat is unethical - it is not your right to say an animal's life is worth a pleasant taste sensation in your mouth." Suppose we didn't slaughter cows for their meat but, instead, just drank their milk? We wouldn't be off the hook; there are anti-milk Nazis. Robert Cohen, a.k.a. "Notmilk Man", director of the Anti-Dairy Coalition, says that there is "no nutritional value to drinking milk.