Obesity as a publicity generating ploy

Radley Balko discusses the current hysteria over obesity and the stampede by various levels of government to be seen to be doing something about it:

We're in the midst of a moral panic over obesity. We're told that we've been getting fatter for thirty years, and that this thickening of our waistlines portends a coming healthcare catastrophe. Yet over that same period of time, our life expectancy has risen to all-time highs, while cancer, heart disease, and stroke have dropped off dramatically.

Of course, when we're talking about children, the rhetoric only heightens. "We need to do something — for the children," is a refrain so common in American politics, it's become cliché. Invariably, "for the children" means taking control away from parents, and handing it over to panicked bureaucrats and health activists. "For the children" means act now. It means do what at first blush seems obvious; to do what feels right, consequences and real world implications be damned.

It's a common belief, both in the newsroom and in the ministry office, that parents are the worst possible people to be raising their own children. And, as with other ideas based on faith rather than fact, it's rarely challenged by those who operate under that belief system.

In lieu of the state stepping between every child and her parents, the ability to undermine the confidence of parents in how they raise their children is a valuable panic-inducing tool. By making parents less sure that they are doing the job properly, officially approved experts can be given more moral power to bludgeon parents into line. Even when the official message this month is in direct contradiction to the one from last month, the subtext remains "parents bad, experts good."

All I can hope is that the old folk tale about the boy who cried wolf is still operating. . .

Hat tip to Jon for the link.