Saturday, February 02, 2008

Stupidest Idea Ever?

Meet Mississippi House of Representative Republicans W. T. Mayhall Jr., John Read and Bobby Shows. These are the gentleman that yesterday submitted perhaps the stupidest idea I've ever seen regarding obesity in the form of House Bill 282.

How stupid?

So stupid I felt compelled to post on Saturday.

So what did their collective brain-trust come up with?

Well they've proposed that the State of Mississippi make it illegal for restaurants to serve folks who are technically definable as obese (utilizing a BMI of 30 as a cut off).

In Mississippi, the fattest State in America, that would be more than 30% of the population.

Any restaurant who failed to do so would risk having their restaurant license revoked.

While I'm all for a top down approach to providing consumers with more information (like Calories on menus, proper education in schools and national eating guidelines that actually address the issue of obesity), blind, hateful bias helps no one.

Well boys, hope you're ready for the onslaught, because a move that stupid is going to take the blogosphere and media by storm.

To read their bill in its entirety, click here.

UPDATE: (February 4th) Thanks to Paul here's another great quote on the matter. This one's from Morgan Downey, the Executive Vice President of the Obesity Society. He referred to Bill-282 as,
"the most ill-conceived plan to address a public health crisis ever proposed"
I don't disagree.

[Hat tip to my sister Michal who actually popped this story over to me before it had hit the airwaves]