Keep your laws off my stomach

[bokamba]

Michelle Obama, like her husband, talks very much like a Chinese government official. She thinks it's the political leaders' job to direct the private sector and make decisions that should be made by parents. This kind of ideology doesn't belong in our country.

Comments

[writer1985]

How do you feel about providing financial incentives to encourage companies to lower sodium content, etc?

Also, in many cases, it's not so much parental inattention (though I agree that does play a part) as simple unavailability of healthy options. In Shiprock, NM, a reservation town, there are exactly three restaurants: Burger King, McDonald's, and Taco Bell. The sole grocery store does not stock fresh produce, as it is too expensive to ship and store. The nearest town over is a 50 mile drive. Is it a surprise that more than half the kids on the rez are overweight?

[bokamba]

Incentives are better than patronizing speeches, but I still think the government should stay out of this. As unfortunate as the residents of Shiprock may be, I have a hard time believing that the government can come up with a solution that (a) is effective and (b) doesn't cost everyone else an excessive amount of money. The people of Shiprock are choosing to live in a place without affordable healthy food; the rest of us (people and businesses) should not have to pay for the consequences of that choice.

[writer1985]

So I showed this to my friend who just spent 5 weeks on Primary Care in Shiprock, and this was her response (anonymously, per her request):

[Her]: HA
[Her]: i'm not even going to count how many things are incorrect about that sentence
[Her]: does he understand how a reservation works?
Me: enlighten him
Me: and me!
[Her]: most people have lived on the rez for years (because the government put their families there)
[Her]: fastfood came later and they didn't have the political power to lobby
Me: what about his claim that they are choosing to continue living there?
Me: i.e. what are the barriers to moving?
[Her]: money, land, housing, taxes, navajo rules, access to other resources
[Her]: the issue isn't that there is fastfood
[Her]: the issue is that there is nothing but fastfood
[Her]: and fastfood is cheaper than healthy food
[Her]: in part because of government subsidies for corn

[bokamba]

I doubt that it's really impossible to move. Difficult, sure, and most people don't like to leave their family and childhood home, but I'd find a way if it was a matter of life and death.

I also note that the majority of the problems were created by government mismanagement. And yet only the government can be trusted to competently resolve them?

What did they eat before the fast food restaurants came to town? Were they starving to death?